Texture Rubbings

In the completed project above, the green quadrilateral and lower right red triangle are window screen, above the red triangle is a purple shoe print, the bottom central black section is fabric lace, the central pink triangle is a texture plate and the left central purple triangle is a leaf. 

I created this design to encourage students to try many different textures and colors, but plain white paper works too. Darker crayon colors seemed to show up better than lighter colors, such as yellow or pale pink. 

Project length: 45 minutes
Audience: 1st Grade
Materials:
  -white copy paper (not card stock or construction)
  -peeled crayons (large supply in the art cupboard)

  -textures, such as a leaf, fabric lace, mesh/screen. There are also wonderful texture plates in the art cupboard (plastic sheets with ridges in many designs). Be creative or experimental... The bottom of your shoe might make a good rubbing pattern. 

Hubble Space Telescope Chalk Pastels

Hello again from Mr. Reardon’s class! This month, we learned about the Hubble Space Telescope and interpretted its images using chalk pastels. It was awesome.

We started out by talking about the Hubble Space Telescope. The telescope does not merely see the visible spectrum far beyond what humans can see, but it can also see the near ultraviolet and near infrared spectra. So the colors and formations captured by the telescope are infinitely diverse and colorful. I brought some print outs of the photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. We talked about the vastness of space, the shapes of galaxies, that nebulas are made of gas (giggle), and that those tiny white spots in the photos are stars, just like our sun. The images are so amazing, and they were to be our inspiration for making art!

Well, the perfect medium for interpretting these incredible photos would be chalk pastels. Chalk pastels can be transparent or opaque. Depending on how we use the pastels, the color they may be hard and intense, or they can be soft and subtle. And, we get to use the pastels on black paper, which is the perfect canvas to emulate deep space.

I showed a few techniques for using the pastels. Like, drawing a dotted line to lightly sketch the composition. Or using the torn edge of a paper as a mask to create a hard edge. I also demonstrated that when we smudge the color, it softens its appearance. When we leave the color pure and untouched, it is more opaque and sharp. I encouraged them to not cover the entire sheet of paper with color; the black paper will help us represent the vastness of space.

Finally, we discussed that chalk pastels are messy, and that's why we covered their desks with paper. Mr. Reardon asked them to please roll up their sleeves.

Then we got to it...

It was a deep space free for all. I encouraged them to experiment with opacity and blending colors. Try to remember that there is energy and gravity in these space formations, so there should be spots of intesity in their compositions.

Many students completed more than one drawing. It was a good time.

I sprayed the pictures with clear coat fixative to help prevent smearing. I'm actually not sure if that was a good idea, because now they stink! Hopefully, they'll air out soon and we'll be able to hang them in the hall this week.

You can really see the inspiration in their interpretations.

Feathered Birds (example of mixed media)

Step 3

Project length: 50-60 minutes
Audience: 1st Grade
Materials:
  -white school glue
  -feathers
  -googly eyes

  -pencil, colored pencils or markers

  -colored construction paper for body 

    & beak

  -white card stock or construction paper for the background

These 3 examples were displayed to visually demonstrate the steps involved in the project.

Step 2

The two body parts were pre-cut for the students. They glued the body and beak down onto a piece of paper. Next a googly eye was added.

Step 1

We then passed out feathers of all colors and shapes, and sizes that weren't too small or too big for this project. Some students used all of one color, or used several different colors. (The teacher provided the students with a helpful limitation/recommendation of 8 feathers each, which helped the students narrow down their choices and stay within our time frame.)
The students then used a pencil or markers to add some background or other details.