POLAR BEARS – 3RD GRADE

How adorable are these bears?! We used liquid watercolors and salt for the background, then a guided drawing of the polar bear and black oil pastel for shading! Read below students artwork to see how we created them with step-by-step pics!

DAY 1

On the first day of this 2 day lesson, students painted their background sky for the polar bear.

I put out bowls of turquoise and magenta liquid watercolors and bowls of kosher salt. 3rd graders watched me do a quick painting demo under the doc camera first, reviewing the wet-on-wet painting technique. First applying only water to the top half of their 12×18″ 80# white drawing paper, then adding whichever color paint they want first to the wet areas on their paper. Kids always love seeing how the paint spreads and feathers outward when doing wet-on-wet!

I encouraged students to paint randomly, and let the two colors merge here and there. If they created somewhat of a stripey effect with the two colors, I showed them how to brush on only water between the two stripes to help blend them together and blur the lines a bit more.

They loved watching the variety of lavender and purple hues develop when the turquoise and magenta paint mixed!

Once half the paper was painted and while still wet, students sprinkled salt over that area creating a salt resist technique! 3rd graders remembered this technique when they created the 3D Water lily last year in 2nd grade. Once dry, the salt crystals leave behind white areas that resemble snowflakes in the sky. For our 3D waterlilies project, the salted areas resembled light reflecting off the water background for the waterlily.

Once half of the paper was painted and salted, they wet the other half with just water and repeated painting and adding salt to the remaining half. Working on half the paper first, ensures the area is still wet enough for the salt. If the paper is too dry (the paint has dried up and the paper isn’t wet enough) the salt has nothing to absorb to create the snowflake effect.

Paintings were set aside to dry until the following art class.

Once dry, I brushed off all of the salt on students paintings and flattened them under a pile of heavy books. Here’s a few students painting’s that have been brushed off and flattened and are ready for the polar bear!

DAY 2

3rd graders followed along with me while I did a guided drawing of the polar bear on 12×18″ 80# paper. Here are step-by-step photos that show how I drew the bear with my students.

Once drawn in pencil, I showed students how to add the black oil pastel. First we traced over all our lines with the black oil pastel. Then colored in the eyes and nose except for the small shiny reflective parts, where it remained white, like below.

Then using one finger, smudge the oil pastel, following the direction of the lines drawn for each area, creating shadows within the polar bears fur. The only areas you don’t smudge are in the polar bears eyes, nose and mouth.

Where the curve of the belly is, we drew a few curving lines with oil pastel and smudged a U shape to give him MORE chubby cuteness!

Then draw a straight horizontal line where the curve of the belly is on either side of the polar bear with pencil. This creates the snow the polar bear is standing on.

Once finished smudging, students cut out their bears. Cut following the horizontal line, then cut following the curve of the body of the bear and to the other horizontal line. Now the bear and the snowy ground are cut out as one piece.

Then glue the back with a glue stick, (especially around the edges), then glue onto the painting, lining up both papers edges!

Voila! I LOVE these polar bears so much!

This wonderful lesson idea is from @2art.chambers (with a few changes). Thanks LauraLee!

More 3rd grade polar bears will be added after winter break! Also STAY TUNED for new 2nd grade artwork– Coming very soon!!