Van Gogh and Chagall Paint by Number..... sort of

You can find books that have paintings by the Masters in outline for coloring in purposes. I scanned these in and printed them to A2, mounted them to board and cut them up into pieces. On the backs of the pieces I allocated a color scheme, warm and cool colors worked well. The pieces were all mixed up and then divided out to the students who had know idea what they made. All the students had to do was color with the outlined scheme and add as much detail and texture as they like. When all are colored ask the students to work together to piece the two painting back into shape. It is best to use two paintings at a time so the students can't figure it out; my students thought it was an underwater farm scene at the beginning! I used this lesson as an induction to art for year 6 students moving into year 7. The finished images were hung in their new form rooms.

Life Stack

Year 3 is looking at 'Who They Are'. Today in art students were asked to think of their favorite sport, activity, food, animal, class and also look at what makes up different parts of their life. We then started by drawing a picture of them in action. Many students drew themselves kicking a ball, swimming or running. The image was then built up by balancing the next drawing on top of the last. Scale was ignored and objects were often warped in size. This stack, balancing precariously on top of the student’s body was then painted. In the next few weeks I will ask my students to sculpt individual pieces of the drawing and we will create a personal ceramic totem.