Pastel Dinos

I like for my students to be able to experiment with different art materials, or media.  One such medium is pastel.  There are oil pastels and soft pastels, and the students learn the proper way to use each of these.  They also learn different techniques for blending colors.

One project using this medium is my "Pastel Dinos" project.  The students use a black oil pastel to draw a dinosaur.  They were allowed to make up their own dinosaur, using their creativity to add any details they thought their dino should have.  They had to add a horizon line so that their dino was standing on the ground instead of floating in the middle of the paper.  Next step, adding color.

The kiddos used soft pastels to add color to their imaginary dinos.  They learned that you have to be very easy with these pastels--they are called soft pastels because they are soft.  They blended colors and used their fingers to smudge the pastel, being careful not to smudge the black oil pastel into the colorful soft pastels.

This year, I did this project with first and second grades.  Here are some first grade projects:

Kristen C.

Alli H.

Kaleb T.

Morgan K.

Addie W.

Here are some of the 2nd grade projects:

Walker M.

Charlee E.

Sarah T.

Carleigh M.

Mary-Claire W.

Positive and Negative Shapes

Space is one of the Elements of Art. Now, this is not the space where the planets are--it refers to the space in a work of art, and how it's organized. There are two kinds of space: positive and negative space. Positive space is the main subject of the artwork. Negative space is the area around the subject. In a sculpture, the positive space is the sculpture, and the negative space is the air around the sculpture.

Our second graders have demonstrated their knowledge of positive and negative space with shapes. They cut a shape out of one square of paper and glued it onto another square. This is the positive space. Then, they glued their negative space to another square. Check them out!

Marleigh C., Jacob F., Kara F.

Tucker H., Ana W., Emma T.

Sophia C., Kate K., Davis S.