Thursday, January 22, 2015

March of the Penguins


 Ella, 1st grade

 Reese, 1st grade

 Aven, Kinder

 Campbell, Kinder

 Izzy, Kinder

 Jolie, Kinder

 Kaden, 2nd grade

 Kate, Kinder

Lauren, Kinder

My classes looked at the illustrations in the children's book, Solo by Paul Geraghty. It's the story of a young penguin who is left alone in the icy Antarctic for the first time. My students drew their penguins on pale pink construction paper so they could see their white chalk pastel shading for the penguin face and body. Heads were done in Sharpie or charcoal. Since a little goes a long way with charcoal, I had my young students keep the charcoal stick on the table and just run their pointer finger along it to add shadows. This prevented penguins that were completely smudged in black. For the backgrounds, snow beneath their feet was painted with white and pale blue acrylic and sky with liquid watercolor and salt (always a crowd pleaser). The last touch before their cut penguins were glued to their backgrounds was a splattering of watered down white acrylic to create a snowy atmosphere. Nice job kids!

Miss Mary

16 comments:

  1. These are adorable!!!!! Love the shading and highlights!

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  2. LOVE these! Great lesson on shading/value! I have learned so many great techniques from your blog-thank you for sharing your expertise!
    Michelle {CreateArtwithME.com}

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  3. Thanks very much for the nice comments!

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  4. Thanks Mary for sharing your art ideas with other educators from around the world. I especially like your idea of having students illustrate stories or movies. The March of the Penguins movie was especially appealing to me showing the extreme strength of the male and female penquins as they attempt to care for the baby penguin waiting in a fragile egg couched on his/her father's cold protective feet. Thanks for sharing the adorable penguin paintings on your blog. I'd like to have my own first graders try their hand at painting something similar, with your permission. I'll look forward to other creative avenues you travel. Sincerely, Barbara Greenway, Art Teacher, SJNRA

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  5. ermahgawd- these are too adorable! I want to hug them all! Great lesson- my Grade 1's have been begging for a penguin art project so I might teach this next week :)

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  6. The author likes the artwork.

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  7. This is great Mary! I'm gonna try this lesson this week!

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  8. You use a lot of chalk and charcoal with your students with the collage method. How do you keep everything from smearing when they glue everything together?

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    1. Since I teach to small groups rather than a school environment, I will often cut out the chalk pastel or charcoal work for my younger students in projects that take 2 classes to finish. When gluing, I like to put a clean piece of paper on top and lightly press down to prevent smudging.

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  9. I'm wondering what color of paper you painted the backgrounds on?

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    1. Hi Tasha. We used Canson watercolor paper. It holds up well with both the acrylic painted ground and the watercolor and salt skies.

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  10. As a recently graduated teacher who has been placed last minute as a Visual Arts specialist, I can see that your page is going to be a God-send. Thank you for sharing your talent!

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    1. What a Lovely comment. Thank you so much Tennille!

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  11. Do you have a tutorial on how to draw a penguin?

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I appreciate your comments and feedback!