Ocean scenes using chalk pastels and white paint

Each Friday, the children in the wind group experience a different art technique. Today we used chalk pastels and white paint to create an ocean scene. There are two important steps when using chalk pastels and white paint. The first step is to draw the desired scene with chalk and the second step is to dip a finger in white paint and to spread it over the chalk. The friction, between the paint and chalk, enables the colour to spread and creates a smooth surface. 

Once the ocean scene dried, the children used black construction paper to rip or cut out some silhouettes. Some children chose to have a boat in their art, while others picked different animals and sea creatures.

Primary and secondary colours assessment

In order to assess the children's knowledge on colour, we made our own play dough. One by one, the children shared their knowledge on colour and chose to create their own mixture for their play dough. 

The conversations and facial expressions showed their knowledge, joy and playfulness when it comes to mixing colours.

A child's inquiry led to this activity

Esme "Can we create tints and shades only from primary colours?" 

In most situations, doing the work and experiencing new discoveries is a better learning experience than just discussing it. In order to answer Esme's question, I gave the children the opportunity to explore with paint. The children each had primary and secondary colours, as well as white and black paint. On a palette, the children freely mixed and created different colours, tints and shades. While exploring this process, Esme answered her own question. "I am adding white to purple and it's turning lighter. I am creating a tint." 

Esme "We can create tints and shades to all the colours in the world." 

The children painted with the colours they mixed and they are very eager to take their art home and share it with their family.

Experiencing Winslow Homer's style - Watercolours

On Friday, we explored the works of Winslow Homer, an artist that was a master of outdoor painting scenes. Homer was one of the first artists to create watercolour paintings. He used watercolour for perspective, and this style is used to create the feeling that some things in the picture look far away while other things looked closer. 

The children experimented the technique of wet-on-wet watercolour, painting the land, trees, a mountain lake and the sky.

Colours in nature - Hue, Tint and Shade

During our nature walk, the children picked various items in nature to explore and observe. Out of those materials, we picked a couple of leaves to look at. The children noticed that the leaves are yellow, but while describing them in detail, they labelled the colours as following: "brownish yellow", "darker yellow", "lighter yellow", "bright like the sunshine yellow". 

The project we are working on right now is to create the colours that we see on our leaves. We used yellow as the root colour and we added white to create tints and black to create shades. The children noticed that we could alter the colours by adding more or less white/black to the hue colour (root colour - in our case yellow).

Esme "If you put too much black, then it will actually turn our colour into black and we can't see the yellow anymore." 

Grace "The more white we add, the lighter it becomes." 

Luca "I would like to add more black to my mixture to make it darker."

Art on Fridays - Abstract Art

During group time on Friday we looked at paintings and art projects and the children described what they were seeing in the different pictures. Some paintings represented a replica of different objects or nature scenes and it was very easy to describe what it was, compared to some art work that required a second look at it, a deeper and more thoughtful approach. That kind of art is called Abstract Art. The main characteristic of abstract art is that it has no recognizable object. Some abstract artists use colours, shapes and different objects to capture their emotions and subconscious thoughts. 

The children used different materials to create abstract art. Although all the children had access to the same materials, each work of art looks very unique and has it's own little story behind it. 

Colours in nature

Brown trees. "with a little bit of black" - Angela

The children in the wind group know the primary colours and explored mixing and creating different colours in the last few days. Fusing that knowledge about colour with what they know about nature, we will expand our inquiry and discuss/explore the different colours we find in nature.

"Green leaves" - Kesler

"A gray rock" - Grace 

As an assessment, after collecting some natural elements from outdoors, we will challenge our expertise in creating new colours by mixing primary colours to create secondary ones. The task will be to mix the primary colours together and add white and black to create the colours of nature that the children bring in from outside. 

"What do you think Angela? What colour is this leaf?" 

Using paint to represent the movement of waves

Our art activity on Friday was sparked by the children's knowledge on what nature is. One of their ideas was the OCEAN. 

Vincent van Gogh is a very famous artist that used to visit the seaside to study the movement of the waves. 

While listening to the sound of waves, the children used different shades of blue, white, green and black to create a painting of waves. 

Some children chose to close their eyes and imagine the waves splash and roll. 

Their paintings express the wave movements that they imagined.

Primary colours and discoveries while mixing them

This week we focused our attention on primary colours and colour mixing. The children shared their knowledge on colours and explored mixing colours in different ways using varied materials. 

Working together with a partner, the children sorted the toys they were playing with into different piles. Their task was to only use primary colours. This activity showed the children's knowledge and understanding of primary colours. 

 

Colour unit - formative week

Central idea: Learning about colours helps build awareness of colours in nature

Last week was the first week (formative week) of our new unit and the children demonstrated a very broad knowledge on colours. Our main focus is to deepen this knowledge while mixing colours (Change), looking at colours around us in nature (Connection) and other ways that people represent colours (Perspective).