December 10th Art in Action Highlights
This week the 2nd and 3rd Graders received instruction on the following elements
and principles of art:

Line: the path of a point moving through space.

Color: Colors all come from the three primaries and black and white. They have three
properties – hue, value, and intensity.

Space/Perspective: Space refers to the area in which art is organized. Perspective is
representing a volume of space or a 3-dimensional object on a flat surface
Laurie Shepherd (Nicholson,Mullock,Shadel,Danberg)
Mrs. Shepherd taught a lesson on perspective. The students began by coloring snowmen characters in
the foreground and then using Q-tips to dot snowflakes over the snow man to create snow in front and
the character in the background. They turned out great!
Trese Rand (Flanagan,Nicholson,Danberg,VanOeveren)
Trese taught a lesson on drawing flying reindeer.
The reindeer could also be a regular deer jumping
through the sky. The students used oil pastels on dark paper for the background. They started by
using a white oil pastel to outline the reindeer so it could easily be redraw if necessary. At the end of
the drawing part, the students got to try "blending" the oil pastels, this technique gives the feeling
that the reindeer is "flowing".
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Trese also taught the students how to use expressive lines to give animation to the deer. Expressive
lines make it look like the reindeer is jumping or flying.
Antlers were drawn in and Trese explained to
the students how reindeer antlers grow more towards the rear of the animal and the deer around the
Northwest have smaller and more forward curved antlers. Trese always tries to get the students to
really observe and think about what they are drawing. For example, if the deer was airborne they
talked about making the ground below have small trees (similar to when you are in an airplane and
everything below is small). The students then added snow and/or stars. Some students added some
fairly realistic moons too. The students were not limited on the colors they could choose so there are
some wonderfully colorful deer! The students are continuing to hone their skills with blending oil
pastels and are more willing to try again or take what they have already done and make it into their
own creation.
Kara Popp (Rosendale,Flanagan,)
Mrs. Popp taught a lesson on using shapes and layers to create reindeer greeting cards. After the
students finished designing their cards with various shapes and layers, they added in a literacy
component to write their own individual message.
Kaila Russell (Mullock,Rosendale,VanOeveren,Shadel)
This week the 2nd and 3rd graders made evergreen trees. Everyone began with a green triangle and
transformed it into a beautiful tree by cutting, pasting and embellishing! It is always so fun to see
what they are inspired to create using just a few basic supplies. Even though they all began with the
same thing, the end product was truly unique and amazing...much like our children!
Art At Home
Warm and Cool Colors:
Review the primary and secondary colors with your child. Talk about how these colors can also be
grouped in another way. Warm and cool.
Talk about things that make us feel warm and what colors they are. Like the sun is yellow and makes
us feel warm, fire has yellow, red and orange and also makes us feel warm. Do the same for the cool
colors (blues, greens and blue-violets).
Have your child draw a picture that makes them feel warm and cool using only the warm and cool
colors. Remind them that if they are going to use red, yellow and orange (warm colors) they must
draw something that is warm. The same with greens, blues and purple (cool colors).
Perspective:
In drawing and painting, perspective is a method of creating the illusion of depth by means of
converging lines. In simple terms that means that by taking and arranging your lines on a piece of
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paper, you can make your image appear as though it is three dimensional. Visualize standing at the
side of the road. OK, good. Now visualize a car driving towards you way in the distance. As that car
gets closer, you will see more of it... you will see the color of the car, the shape, the person driving it
and so on. The same goes in a drawing. The farther away something is, the smaller and less detailed
it is, the closer that something is, the more detailed it is.
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