value – Art with Mrs Filmore

ANIMAL DRAWINGS – 4TH GRADE

I had JUUuuust enough time to squeeze in one more art lesson before the last day of art for 4th graders at Roosevelt—–so they created these wonderful animal drawings!! Students at Roosevelt had 4 (40 minute) art classes to work on them.

The goal for this lesson was to draw at least 1 animal within it’s natural habitat (kids could choose their own animal to draw), and draw them either in the foreground or middle ground, with objects drawn in all 3 areas- showing an understanding of the elements of art –space, and value, as well as foreground, middle ground and background.

I had a variety of “step-by-step” how to draw handouts on various animals (deer, sloths, pigs, horses, rabbits, foxes, owls, among others etc. ) for students to refer to, as well as packets of images of animals to refer to when drawing.

Students drew on 12×18″ drawing paper, and could draw on it vertically or horizontally.

I showed them my examples as well as students drawings from previous years on a powerpoint, and we reviewed foreground, middle ground and background. We discussed how objects in the foreground appear to be the largest, and are drawn large and along the bottom of the paper, things in the middle ground appear a bit smaller to show they are further away, and are drawn smaller and near the middle of the paper, and things in the background are the smallest to show they are the furthest away and are drawn smallest near the top of the paper—which creates the illusion of space!

After students finished drawing, they began coloring in everything with colored pencils.

Before coloring though, I went over the element of art VALUE and we talked about how when we see things in real life, objects that are CLOSEST to us, tend to look darker and have more detail and contrast than objects that are further away. Particularly things that are very far away. Those objects tend to look lighter in value, have very little detail, and appear blurry.

The goal for coloring their drawings was to color in the foreground with darker values, and show detail and texture, and students colored in the middle ground and background the colors should be lighter in value.

I showed them photos of animals in their habitat that depicted this to help them understand better, then we reviewed how we could change the value within artwork using colored pencils. In a previous lesson on Victorian Architecture (these can be viewed under “4th grade art lessons” under the drop down menu) students learned about “value” and created a monochromatic house with colored pencils. We reviewed how to change the value by simply pressing hard while coloring the color would appear darker in value. By pressing with a lighter touch while coloring- the color would be lighter in value. Another way to change the value is to select a variety of shades of one color (say dark forest green, a medium green, and lighter lime colored green).

Students did a great job! Take a look below!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post! Check back again very soon for 5th grade Grid drawings, 2nd grade “thinking of summer” drawings, and 1st grade “dream houses”!! Plus more!!….

Thanks for checking out my blog!

OP ART -“3D PAPER CONE DRAWINGS”–5TH GRADE!

December 6, 2017 No Comments

5th Graders knocked it out of the park with this lesson!! I’m super proud of their hard work!

Students really LOVED it too and couldn’t believe it could be created using just sharpies, and colored pencils. More on this below!

This lesson took about 5 (40 minute) art classes to complete.

ON DAY 1: Students were introduced to various OP Art by artists Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley, and learned what Op art was (Optical Illusion Art) with a quick slideshow of work.

Six straight lines that intersect at the same spot, were drawn ahead of time on 80# 10×10″ paper for each student with a ruler; Creating 12 “slices” in total.

After kids got their papers, I demonstrated under a document camera as they followed along with me for the first step.

Students then drew a series of concentric curved lines alternating the direction of the curve within each “slice”.

Once finished with that step, students labeled every OTHER slice with a “B” lightly in pencil, to mark that space as black.

This step helps speed things along as kids color in– (just locate the ones labeled “B”), AND reduces any potential mistakes while using Sharpie.

Once that’s all set, students then started tracing over the smallest slices labeled “B” in the center, using a extra fine point Sharpie, (so it wouldn’t bleed too much into the small white sections), then filled in.

As areas got larger, kids switched to a Fine Point Sharpie, (since it has a thicker tip), and colored in the rest.

These 2 steps took about 2- (40 minute) classes to complete.

ON DAY 3, I discussed the element of art VALUE with students and showed them how to create subtle value changes.

Then I demonstrated the next step —using a black colored pencil in the white areas to create shading and shadows, and a white colored pencil in the black areas to create highlights.

Before students started this on their own artwork, I had them practice first on black and white papers.

I explained to students it’s important to draw the lines close together.

It’s also key to press harder with the white in the center, and gradually get lighter and lighter as the white gets closer to the edges of each slice, leaving a bit of black showing along the sides.

Then, using the black colored pencil in just the white areas, they drew darkest along the sides and gradually pressed lighter and lighter towards the center—leaving the center strip white!

Students loved seeing the 3D effect start to emerge!!

Here is my step-by-step video tutorial on this lesson

This is my first you tube tutorial (eep!) I’ve ever created….This is all a bit daunting to me, so please be kind as I’m excited (and NERVOUS!) about creating art tutorial videos. But it’s a goal of mine as an educator to try it out, and my hope is to get better and better at it -eventually adding additional art tutorial videos in the future!