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Ms. McDonough's UA Class: Week 2/8 - 2/12

K - 2 Activities

Artists sometimes use untraditional tools to create art - this means tools that you wouldn’t normally think of. We think of painters using paintbrushes, but painters can use pretty much anything to put their paint on the page. We are going to explore other tools to work with paint.

 

Supplies: You will need some tempera or finger paint (washable!) and a paper or styrofoam plate to put the paints on. After you pour the paint, shake the plate gently from side to side a bit so it spreads out. You will also need paper, white or colored. You will hunt around your house for the rest of the supplies! *Be sure to check with  your family to make sure that you have permission to use the items. These items will be dipped into the paint and stamped onto your paper, just like a stamp. So hard items work best, especially ones with an interesting design. Think Lego and Duplo. Marker tops and forks make interesting marks, so does bubble wrap and the bumpy part of corrugated cardboard. Check out the image below to get some ideas.

 

 

Create: Once you have collected some items to use, you will dip them into the paint and stamp onto your paper! First you just want to explore the different designs they create - what shapes and lines do you see? Afterwards, experiment with making different designs with the shapes. See the example below.

 

3 - 5 Activities

Warm colors and Cool colors are two color families that are very important to artists when they consider what colors to use in a work of art. Warm colors tend to remind us of things that feel warm, like the sun and fire. They are the colors red, yellow, orange, and pink. Cool colors, on the other hand, remind us of things that tend to feel cooler, like the night sky and the deep ocean. The cool colors are blue, green, and purple. For this project you will be working with both color families.

 

Supplies: White paper, pencil, ruler, markers or colored pencils

 

Directions: *See the example below to help better understand*
  • Using a ruler, make a 1 inch grid on your paper, or print a grid from a site like printfreegraphpaper.com. 
  • Then using a compass, or a plate/lid/bowl etc. draw a circle on the page.
  • Draw the outline of a tree, making sure that the branches stay within the circle.
  • Color the circle in either warm or cool colors, and use the opposite to color the rest of the background. 
  • You can either make the tree a silhouette or decorate it with line designs.