say cheese. part two.

The first 4 1st grade classes finished up their animal portraits today. Many students were chomping at the bit to add color, and they had their opportunity today. I demonstrated adding patterns of color to shapes and then applying a wet brush over top to create a watercolor effect.  I also showed them how to mix their secondary colors from their primary color markers, by alternating the colors next to one another or by drawing the darker of the 2 primaries over top of the lighter one.

The students had created these colors by mixing primary color crayons, so it was an opportunity for them to practice mixing in a different medium.

Using the water soluble markers to paint is such a good introduction to watercolor. The clean up is minimal, cakes of paint are not gouged, brushes are not jacked up. I love it and the students get to see how to use a "regular" drawing material like markers in a different way.

Inspired by the terrific paintings of Matte Stephens. He has an art exhibit opening at Subtext Gallery right here in San Diego this Friday. I am hoping to check it out while it's up. Maybe a field trip is in order...

say cheese.

We are on a modified schedule this week due to minimum days for parent conferences. We are meeting each class for 40 minutes.

I usually meet with my lower grades for an hour. What to do. What to do.

How about revisiting the super cool paintings of Matte Stephens with a different grade level? I shared his website with the 1st graders and we looked at a number of his paintings. We discussed how he creates a lot of portraits of people and animals in his work. He often gives his animals human characteristics. The students got a big kick out of this.

The painting we focused on is titled Cat Family. A very "proper" portrait of a family of felines. Students pointed out that Matte made the humans look humanlike by making them stand up and sit like we do, and by dressing them in human clothes.

After looking at and talking about his work for about 10 minutes, the students and I got busy making our own versions. The creation of the bodies was fairly directed. Students chose how many kids they wanted and what gender they should be. The heads of their animal families was up to them as well. There has been a good amount of variety in the types of animals students have decided to include in their drawings.

Once they got everything in, the students traced all their contour lines with a black permanent marker. The contour lines aren't really present in Matte's original, but I have the students do it so when they use water soluble markers to paint their drawings next week, the edges of shapes will be clear even if the paint handling is a little "loose".

I'm looking forward to seeing how the students add color to these next week, but I thought these interesting characters deserved to be shared before then.

The 40 minute timeframe really worked out perfectly for this 1st part of the project. 

yummy.

I found out about the work of Matte Stephens last summer while wandering around online looking for artists of interest for myself and for students. He's a young illustrator working up in Portland, Oregon. I like the retro feel of his work. He cites Ben Shahn as an influence and you can totally see it in his work. Matte often uses a muted color palette which caught my eye as well.

I thought his work would offer the kinder classes a chance to play with line and materials while adding a bit of silliness to the mix. Since they worked with water soluble markers to make a relief print in the previous lesson, I thought it would be interesting for them to use the same coloring tools and use them in a different way. With this project, after drawing and tracing their contour lines, they added color loosely to areas of their image and then brushed water over top of those parts to create a watercolor-type effect.

After sharing some of Matte's work with the kids, I focused on his Lumberjack Breakfast with them.

We talked about what the utensils were and how they used them. Then we talked about what made this breakfast scene a bit different than a normal breakfast. Hint- its in the smiles... I brought up the idea that the food items might not all be happy about being eaten. Maybe they would be sad, or surprised, or angry.

The students got a kick out of drawing a meal and giving their food items different expressions. When they added the color and "painted" over it with water most of the classes quieted down and really got into it. Students also thought that the water changing color as they used more and more color was neat too.

This is the last project I will do with the kinders for 8 weeks. I'm looking forward to meeting with them again and seeing how they have changed in that short time. When I see them again, it will all be about shape, both flat and 3d forms.

1. intro to Matte Stephen's work 

2. looking at a fork and a knife and drawing them

3. adding food items and plate to paper in pencil

4. trace contour lines with permanent black marker

5. add color to shapes loosely with water soluble markers

6. paint over top of shapes with water to fill them in