Grade 2 Toucan bird: Drawings in Dry Pastels

Second grade students learned that there are many different varieties of toucan birds that live in many parts of the world; their one common attribute is their colorful bill.  While its size may deter predators, it is of little use combating them.  THe toucan's bill is useful as a feeding tool.  The birds use them to reach fruit on branches that are too small to suport their weight, and also to skin their pickings.  In addition to fruit, toucans eat insects and sometimes young birds, eggs or lizards.  Students drew their toucan birds and added color with dry pastels exploring blending.

Grade 2 Tropical Bird Oil Paintings

Second graders painted their tropical birds. They learned about the birds habitats, what they feed on, their nests, eggs, the food they eat and how they sing!  Then we used oil paints on sheets of foam to create our paintings thinking about mixing bright colors and creating surface texture with different kinds of brush strokes for the feathers and plants in the background.  It was fun to think like birds, act like birds and sing like birds!!!

Second Grade Abstract Drawing

Second graders learned about the element of line and shape and put them together to make a design strengthening their drawing skills by exploring: the dot family, the circle family, the straight line family, the curved line family and the angle line family! The designs were colored using markers and colored pencils exploring mixing these together to create layers of colors.

First Grade Still Life Flower Painting

First Graders practiced mixing primary colors to make secondary colors, adding white to make colors lighter and black to make colors darker.  Then they worked with magenta and turquoise in their primary palettes to make a whole new array of colors.  They used all of their new colors to paint a still life picture of flowers in a vase on a table.  They planned their composition to include three parts of space: foreground, middle ground and background thus creating a special place for their still life!

First Grade Kandinsky Color Study

First grade students explored the element of color, balance and texture.  They looked closely at color studies by Kandinsky and created their own studies based on a four quarter composition filled with rhythmical diagonal lines.  Students used oil pastels and applied techniques such as blending, color mixing, layering and side strokes in order to create surface texture; also patterns were added scratching

through the surface revealing layers of color underneath!