Pumpkins, Skulls, & Sweaty Spider Art

I teach an afterschool art lab at Connections Public Charter School in Downtown Hilo.  It's located in the Kress Building.  (Yes, there is a movie theatre upstairs.  This means we get to smell salty, buttery popcorn while we work!)  This fall my students range in age from 6-12 years old (First through 6th Grades), all in the same class. We are learning about the Elements of Art through a variety of fun projects.  I needed a color mixing project to help reinforce the concepts of Primary and Secondary Colors, as well as neutrals, and I found this project at Deep Space Sparkle, which totally fit the bill.  I adjusted the project just a little.  

I brought in a couple of pumpkins, so the students could use their observational skills - we've been working on drawing what your eyes see, not what your brain thinks you see.  That being said, I also gave them some tips and did an example of how to draw a pumpkin.  We also talked about the element of space and trying to fill your paper with the subject of your drawing.  Once the pumpkins were drawn on our white papers, we drew leaves in the empty space.

I put out trays of red, blue and yellow paint, and we reviewed primary colors and secondary colors, as well as neutrals.

Instead of mixing colors on the palette, the students were instructed to mix the paints on the page, which allows for more variation in the color ranges, i.e. some yellow highlights and darker orange areas of the pumpkin.   Once their pumpkins were painted they painted the leaves, and we moved on to work on a different lesson until the following week when the paint would be dry. 




The next lesson, the students used white oil pastels to add highlights, and sent back over their original lines with black oil pastel to make them stand out better.  In some cases the students were a little overzealous with the highlights, and I let them adjust their pieces with orange oil pastel.  We cut out our pumpkins and leaves, and discussed collage composition.  The students laid out their pumpkins and leaves on black paper, deciding what the best composition for their pieces would be.

Once they were happy with their compositions, they glued down their pumpkins and leaves and drew in vines, moons, stars, and anything else they wanted to add, so that their picture could be uniquely their own.





(That is wind drawn by a second grader - awesome)







While we were waiting for paint to dry, we discussed Dios de la Muerte, (Day of the Dead) and the students created these fun sugar skulls with oil pastels.  (We had a lot of absent students this week, so I'll post the missing ones when they are finished.)

This week, we made "magic" spider paintings.  As a class we talked about warm colors and cool colors.  The students did an oil pastel drawing with white and black on white paper, and I did a demonstration of how to do a watercolor wash with cool colors, which they then did themselves, over their drawings, revealing the drawing they couldn't really see prior to the wash.  They were allowed to choose which cool colors they wished to use for their paintings, as long as they used more than one.  The students were excited about how the oil pastels resisted the watercolors.  After lots of comments about sweaty spiders, this was the result.

After they had been introduced to the technique, the students were encouraged to create their own compositions, with complete freedom as to subject matter & colors.  Here are the finished ones.

Happy Fall Art Adventures Everyone!