Monday, September 23, 2013

James Rizzi Birds

This beautiful lesson comes from Patty at Deep Space Sparkle. Before stumbling upon it via Pinterest, I'd never heard of James Rizzi, but having taught this lesson, I'm eager to learn more about his bright, bold work. The kids loved looking at it, too!

I've never been one for much directed drawing. But as I learned in one of the AOE classes I took over the summer, DDs can be a great way to boost kids' confidence in their abilities. And who doesn't want that?

After drawing with a pencil, kiddos outlined their birds--or as we called them, pudgy budgies!--with black oil pastel, then painted with liquid watercolor. To prep the kids, we discussed the warm and cool color families; I made a simple worksheet to enforce the content, as well as have kids pre-select their color scheme. Warm colored birds got cool colored backgrounds and vice versa.

 



The kids ate this up! And since we did our initial DD, older students have reported that their second grade siblings cannot stop drawing birds on their own!





Thank you, Patty! This one's a keeper!

4 comments :

  1. That is a great square one idea. I am finishing up mine. What a job! I made a pinterest board to keep track of ideas. Loved those fish, but it looked like a lot of work.

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    1. It really is a big job getting this Square 1 business completed! The fish were a bit labor-intensive on my part; I eased myself in by doing them more simply in previous years. I'm going to look for your Pinterest board!

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  2. I stumbled onto your blog today and have to give a warm hello! I'm a graduate of Northern High School and once upon a time went to Dillsburg Elementary! Now I'm an elementary art teacher too! I work in Pittsburgh, PA, but will always consider Dillsburg my home :-) My art teacher in Dillsburg was Miss Dentler.

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    1. Hi Melanie--just now getting a chance to respond to you! How funny that you found my little blog! Where do you teach in Pittsburgh? That's where I student taught! I'm at DES and NES! Small world. Your art teacher is the art teacher whose position I took after she retired. :-)

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