Rough Weather Ahead!!!

This class of 3rd grade students experienced rough seas as they painted seascapes depicting stormey skies and large waves. We talked about weather and how skies look when storms are approaching.
First, we took white, turquoise, and violet tempera and painted a stormy sky onto the manila paper, using white first, then, while wet, we slowly applied turquoise and violet, to create stormy clouds. I did allow them to use A LITTLE black, but only after a demonstration showing how little was really needed.
Then, we used violet, blue,turquoise, and white to work in the water. We reviewed "horizon line" and talked about how the waves would form peeks. They should paint the water using brush strokes that immulated rough waves. The last thing we did was add a small jut of land, far in the distance. Some chose to put in lighthouses and ships. Overall, we had some real weather brewing!

Beautiful Painted landscapes

These are some beautiful landscapes that were created by our 3rd grade students as they learned about deep depth. To understand how to create an illusion is not an easy task, but these students did it quite well. In this class, the students learned about landscape, then chose photographs of the landscapes as inspiration for their paintings. It was not required to copy the image exactly. In fact, it was encouraged that they combine ideas from different pictures or just use a part of the image and then "imagine" the rest. The layering technique was similar to the techniques listed in the above entry. There was a little more detail added after the sky, however.

To be honest, this was a real stretch for me as I have been more "controlling", to an extent, in my last 23 years, by doing a little more leading and not as much facilitating as I did in this project. In order to really get these students to make personal decisions and choice, I left the type of landscape up to them as well as how they would paint it with the techniques they had in their arsenals. The results were quite varied showing different skill levels. Overall, I think the lesson was successful and most of the students were happy with their work.