Monochromatic in Fourth Grade

My fourth grade classes are studying Monochromatic Color Schemes. This is a real mind bender for them as their palette is limited to ONE color, plus black and white (which, by the way, are not considered colors). This skill, of creating tints and shades of a color, takes some practice. You may see more examples coming soon!  This is really pushing their boundaries and brains!

Monochromatics

This is such a difficult thing for my 4th grade students. To paint with only one color, only using the tints and shades of that color is not natural as our world is so colorful. BUT is does make you THINK.......... and learn about mixing tints and shades.

Textural Still life

One of my 4th grade classes has been working for quite a while on this one project. It was time consuming, but worth it. These still life collages are all about depth, perspective, and TEXTURE! Students were given time to create a drawing of their desired still life. Then, many different types of art media were made available with which to fill in the different objects. These have paint, tissue, patterened paper, silk flowers, cotton balls, and just about anything else they could find in my art room.

PRINTMAKING- and thinking backwards!

One project that really seems to bring about the "ooooohs" and "ahhhhhhhs" with students is PRINTMAKING. There is something about having an image magically apprear on the paper, when printed. Especially, when we do reduction process, where the students continue to print on top of the same picture 2 or 3 times, with different colors. Every pull brings new excitement as the image becomes more clear and detailed.

In this lesson, my 4th grade students drew a still life, which they choose from a variety of pictures, onto linoleum sheets. They then used the various gouges to cut the linoleum away, printing a different color as they took more and more off the surface. This really stretches their thinking as they have to think in reverse, understanding that what they carve away, will remain the last color they printed. Trust me........they really have to think!