The First Day of Painting!

The first day of painting is always magical in the artroom.  This day, we focus on the materials = from set-up ("Why is it important to keep the paint cups clean?") through clean-up ("If everyone in the class spends 4 minutes cleaning, you will save one art teacher 68 minutes of cleaning work"). Students are given a palette of the primaries (Red, blue, and yellow) as well as white (no black at first).  From this simple palette, students will learn to make all the colors of the rainbow… 

·      What colors do you see? What colors are missing?

·      (in mixing green) How will the color change if you use more blue than yellow?

·      How many times can you change blue?

·      Will you mix on the tray or on the paper?

What does textures mean? As a class, we brainstorm as make texture words as possible: Smooth? Rough? Bumpy? Prickly? Slimey? Scaley?  Then we discover ways to paint them all : We experiment by using different thicknesses of paint & different brushstrokes.

  How can you use the same brush differently to make different marks? (pushing, pulling, pointy, flat, dragging, twisting, rolling,etc)

Dots: Big & bold or teeny tiny….. Can you make a line with just dots?

Rather than a picture, a design is a ptg. Made up of shapes, colors, & lines that you arrange on the paper.

Will you put some shapes on one side the same as the other? Will the edges touch? Will the colors overlap?

Thin paint with water. Can you see through it?

What if you scratch through?

What happens when you paint over a color while it is still wet?

What happens if you combine thick & thin layers?

What discoveries did you make?

Rules and smocks