Saturday, March 5, 2011

Circle Prints: Tints and Shades






I got this idea from Art is the Best Part of the Day, but I wanted to use it to introduce tints and shades to 2nd grade. We first made the circles by stamping a styrofoam cup in black tempera. Then I let them pick one color. We painted with the one color for about 10 minutes, then I went around and added a little bit of white to each students' paint. We did this for the rest of the period, adding more and more white. The next class we did the same but added black for the shades. The kids loved it! We also talked a little about printmaking, covered shapes, repetition and overlapping. I told them to use their fat brushes for the large areas, and their skinny brushes for the small areas. They got a kick out of this. Also, the boys who picked red where a little upset when they got pink after adding white. They wanted to switch colors but I wouldn't let them. What a meanie!

5 comments:

  1. I love it! I love how you taught about value- what a great idea:-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the colors!
    Such a great idea to teach the value of colors.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you! I have been thinking hard about this assignment because another teacher (in my school) criticized them. It hurt my feelings a little, and now every time I pass them in the hall I question them a bit. But ya know some people think art is only little cutesy stuff, lollipop trees, simple square houses, and m-shaped bird...haha.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I LOVE these! I am doing the same project with my third graders (we printed last week, Tuesday they get to paint!) Thanks for sharing (and sorry that you this got some criticism at your school...learning to mix paint is really important!).

    ReplyDelete