Project #5 Hidden Safari

For this project, we learned about safaris and animals you can find in safaris. We started out with watching the beginning of the Lion King to see the different animals that we would see in a safari. We also talked about warm colors and cool colors. It was important to know these colors because we used the combination of them to create our drawing. We learned out to draw, even draw upside down!  We were told to follow how the lines and not focus on what we were actually drawing. This was actually easier for me to draw upside down. I decided to draw a zebra. We were supposed to draw our animal in a sky blue colored pencil. After we were finished with our animal, we drew different patterns over top of the animal with warm colors, such as red, orange, and yellow. I used first orange to draw circles across the whole page.  I then used red to draw hearts in between the circles. I then used yellow to draw lines through the middle of the page. The last thing I did was draw little dots of orange in the middle of the circles. I did this to hide the picture so that you can’t see the zebra.

In order for someone to see the zebra now, we made “Ruby Red Glasses” out of construction paper and cellophane paper. When you put these special glasses on, you will see past all the designs, and see the animal.  This happens because the glasses take away the warm colors and show the cool colors, which is the sky blue. The last thing we did was write three clues about our animal, so that people will be able to guess the animal before they look through the glasses to reveal the real animal. This project was a lot of fun because it was interesting to see how you can actually make a real life safari! Students will have no idea what to look for in the picture until they put their special glasses on! It is just a fun activity to get the students in a safari unit.

An extension activity that I would do with this project would be to have the students draw a safari scene in their hidden picture. They can include as many animals as they would like, and then they would be required to add a small paragraph of each animal explaining where you can find them, where they live, and what they eat. Students will have to provide information about the many animals they include in the hidden picture. This way, they will be learning about animals, as well as drawing them in an example safari. They can make the “Ruby Red Glasses” as well and search their friends’ safari to find out what animals they have in their picture. They will also have the opportunity to learn more about their friend’s animals from the paragraphs they write.

Project #4 Collage Illustration

For this project, we learned about the author and illustrator, Eric Carle. He writes children’s books and uses painting, cutting, and pasting to create his pictures. He will paint a blank piece of paper many different colors and textures. He will then take his picture that he originally drafted and cut the shapes out to trace out of the colors. It was really neat to see and I never expected that to be the way of his drawings. I have always loved Eric Carle’s books and I thought the pictures were particular when it came to the shapes of the objects. For the project, we were able to paint our own papers and use them to cut our shapes out of. I decided to create one of my favorite sceneries in the summertime. I created a collage of a sunset and a slough where there are many fireflies. In the summertime, it is very common to find fireflies by the slough that is a ½ mile away from my home, so I enjoy riding my bike to go see them. I painted an orange paper to show a sunset and I also painted a green paper to show grass for cattails. I chose to place a quote on my picture and it says “Let your personality Shine, to Light your own Path”. I meant for this to mean that everyone is different, even fireflies. Everyone has something different to offer and should be proud of what they have and can give to the world.

For an extension activity, I would have my students create a class story. I would introduce Eric Carle to the class and show them his techniques of creating a collage. I would have the students create their pages of color and textures to show an individual page to use in the collage for our class story, similar to the project we did in class. We would decide on a story, and each student would be responsible for writing a page in the book. It would have to be in the correct order with everyone else’s pages of the book so that the story would go in the right order. This would be a great way for the students to create a book and have a class project.

Project #3 Finger Painting

This is my finger painting, and I have entitled it ‘Home’. Before we painted, we learned about Vincent Van Gogh and his styles of painting. We learned about the lines he used to show movement and emotion. One painting of Van Gogh’s that we observed was ‘Starry Night’. It was neat to see how the lines and colors blended together to create feeling. We were then given the opportunity to either paint a replicate of the ‘Starry Night’ or create our own picture. I decided to create my own picture, to use the combination of colors and lines to show my feelings of something that is very important to me in my life, which is ‘Home’. The rules of this painting were to use foreground, middle ground, and background. In my picture, it shows my farm.  The foreground is of my house, the middle of our barn, and the background of cows grazing and a corn field. I love being home and everything about it; the animals, my family, the space, the beauty, and the great sense of knowing when life knocks you down, you always have somewhere to go to just “get away from everything bad”. In this finger painting, I tried to use lines like those of Van Gogh’s to show texture of the grass, roofs of buildings, and the road. I used many colors and mixed them to create darker colors or lighter colors.

For an extension activity, I would also have my students learn about Vincent Van Gogh and his painting styles of lines and movement. We would discuss how to mix colors and how to create lines using your whole finger, or just the tip of your finger. The activity I would have them do to illustrate what they learned, would be to finger paint their favorite season. They can use the many colors of the season they like the best and combine it with lines to show movement. For example, if one student’s favorite season is spring, they can show movement with the spring showers on colorful flowers and show blending colors as well. If another student’s favorite season is fall, they can paint leaves blowing around the picture using lines to show movement. I think my students would be able to express themselves with their favorite season and the wonderful colors that go along with it, as well as using lines to express movement in their pictures.