messy mixing.

Last week, the 1st graders also dove back into school with a chalk pastel project. Nothing like getting dirty right after an extended break! Before starting, we reviewed their use of natural shapes and primary colors in previous projects. We then looked at some work of Gordon Hopkins for inspiration.

While looking at a few of his works, we identified shapes, patterns, primary colors, and secondary colors. I asked kids if they knew what colors were mixed together to mix the secondaries and I wrote these as math equations of the board for them to refer to while working later.

I introduced the kids to chalk pastels and showed them how to hold the chalk so that their drawing hand does not touch the paper as they work. We lightly drew our compositions with visual elements from Gordon's work. We drew a spikey plant, similar to agaves they may see out here, a branch with leaves that is like jade plants in San Diego, and a few flowers. We also added a couple line patterns to the background. With each step we rotated the paper. I asked students to think about where they wanted each element to go. Where did they think the best place for each was in the composition.

We then used each of the primary colors in a different spot in the composition. Students picked which natural element they wanted done in each color. After that, we added different primaries on top of those to make our secondaries. To fill the background patterns, students could use any color they wanted- this  included any of the other chalk pastels they had available. As the final step, we used a black oil pastel to make one of the main elements stand out more than the other parts. I emphasized making that outline bold and strong by pressing hard with the oil pastel.

candy bars?

No.
Oil bars?
Yes.

The second graders were able to get messy again. When I last met with them, we did an oil stick project based on the work of George Anderson. While the project came out cool, the oil sticks were DONE after 10 classes got to use them.

This time they got to use your standard student grade oil pastels to create an image inspired by American ex-pat Gordon Hopkins. Gordon creates abstract images that are heavy on oil bar, natural shapes, intense coloring, and pattern usage. I like the boldness of his palette and the roughness of many of the shapes in his work. These painting/drawings have a great energy to them.

The students and I looked at a couple of works from Gordon's website and identified different things in them- lines, bright colors, plants, and patterns. I asked them what parts of his paintings look closer to us and why they appear that way. I pointed out that even though Gordon's paintings and George's harbor paintings look different, both artists are applying similar ways of creating 3d space. Most of the classes recognized the use of scale and overlapping to create depth in the images we viewed.

This was much more of an independent drawing exercise than their harbor drawings, so there was a wide variety of approaches to it across the different classes. I emphasized that I would model each step, but they could approach each step with something that I had not shown them how to do.

The large plant for came first followed by a line pattern that had to be overlapped by that plant shape. They then added a shape pattern in an open space and another line pattern to fill another space. Depending on ow much empty space they had left, students could break up the design more with line and/or pattern.

They could use any colors they wanted as long as they pressed hard to make the colors intense and that shapes next to one another were not filled with the same color.