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sixth grade art

Grandma Moses Watercolor – Elementary Art Lesson

October 3, 2018 by sueboo

At the beginning of each art lesson, I ask the students to venture a guess as to where the artist was from, based on the sound of their name.  Consequently, they’re learning that many of the “masters” originated in France (and Italy, and the Netherlands).  They are also discovering that the French drop the sounds of consonants at the end of their words, that Italian might be the easiest foreign language to pronounce, and that artists from the United States are multi-cultural (as one would expect in a pluralistic culture such as ours).

When I posited the question during this lesson on Grandma Moses, I got my favorite response of all time:  “I’m thinking she might have been from Egypt.”  After all, Moses was from Egypt.  Classic.  But no, I had to inform this worthy guesser that Grandma Moses was, in fact, from the United States.  Laughed out loud.

Sixth-graders are a great bunch to teach.  Most of them have dubbed themselves as either artists or non-artists by this point.  So the trick is to reel them in through art history, and/or use a medium with which they have little to no experience so they know they can chalk up any perceived failures to it being their first time.  In this lesson, we did both.

First, we read this book.  I’m a big fan of Mike Venezia’s series.  I especially enjoyed that he mentioned that Grandma Moses’ depictions of the simple life resulted from the lack of availability of modern technology.  Like movies, TV, and CD players.  No mention of handheld devices.  I checked the publication date: 2003.  Ancient history by now.

Second, I breezed through this powerpoint, giving a additional background on Grandma Moses, introducing a few art principles (horizon line, foreground, middle ground, and background), and explaining the project step-by-step.  Here it is, in a nutshell:

Draw horizon line.
Draw background.
Draw objects in foreground.

Fill in the middle ground.
Wet small brush to blend colors on the smaller objects.
Use larger brush to blend colors of the rest of the landscape.

It worked out well.  In the assignment, kids were expected to include objects one might have found in a typical Grandma Moses scene.  Trees, fields, people, buildings, animals, a path or stream.  It kept them engaged and there was little to no mess, as a bonus.

Materials used: Watercolor pencils, watercolor paper (9X12)

Difficulty: Easy.  Sixth-graders were encouraged to take their time.  Most used up the full hour and a half they were given.  Instruction took about 30 minutes.

Posted in: Art Lessons, Everyday life Tagged: elementary art lesson, grandma moses, sixth grade art, watercolor

Rene Magritte – Positive and Negative Space

December 8, 2016 by sueboo
rene magritte art lesson

Our school’s art program attempts to introduce students to various famous artists throughout their course of study.  Each time I get to teach a particular artist, I typically give a brief background on the artist then proceed with an art project that either reflects the style of that artist, mimics a certain work he/she has done, or uses a medium for which the artist is known.  This month I am teaching the sixth graders about Rene Magritte (pronounced muh-greet) and am using his painting Decalcomania (1966) to teach them a bit about the concepts of positive and negative space.

Getting to Know the World’s Artists is a fantastic series by Mike Venezia  (affiliate link).  The students love the tidbits of humor and pictures so, when there is one available for the artist I am teaching, I love to read these books with the kids.

Afterward, I present my lesson using a powerpoint presentation, which saves me the time it would take to fully demonstrate the project.  If there are certain steps with which I expect them to struggle, however, I will show them how to do it in person.  Generally, though, the presentations give them a great step-by-step guide to completing the project.  For this project, we used watercolor to mimic Magritte’s painting Decalcomania.

Make a red watercolor wash
Add a bit of black to make a darker shade of red
Use dark red to paint folds in the curtain

Use blue to paint larger paper, leaving white spaces for clouds
Make a very watered down yellow paint
Add yellow to white areas and blend edges of clouds

Cut out figure, lay on red paper and trace around it.
rene magritte art lesson

Materials used: Watercolor paper, watercolors, black and white photos of students, various-sized brushes.

Difficulty: Easy – takes about an hour from start to finish

Rene Magritte Positive and Negative Space Powerpoint presentation.

Posted in: Art Lessons Tagged: elementary art, positive and negative space, rene magritte, sixth grade art, watercolor

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