Light to Dark Values

Pinterest has inspired art teachers around the world and I am no exception. (Unfortunately I have no idea who originated this lesson, but I am grateful to them.) I really enjoy looking at the value paintings that start from a circle somewhere on the paper and then by adding white and then black you get all these great tints and shades in between. Sooooo I thought I would do them with my 3rd graders. This is what they were doing while other students were doing the Halloween art.

Now I've done value painting with my students before. But I was rather controlling about the whole thing. Students used the color assigned to the table and had to wait to mix up colors until everyone at the table was ready. Also, 2nd graders added black and white only once to their assigned color. While the older ones added black and white twice. It was crazy. Below are samples from what I did before.

   

This time to be able to give students a choice of color I did things differently. I bought small paper plates and set up each plate with black and white paint, then I called up students by announcing the color I would be adding to the plate.

For the actual lesson I started off by modeling, I traced a circle somewhere towards the top of the page and filled in that circle (the moon) with white paint. Then I gradually added color to the white and continued to paint around the moon. At some point I stopped adding white and painted with the color straight from the bottle, then started adding black for a few rounds. My samples are at the top.

 

Since my third graders are my last class, they left their paintings to dry overnight.

 

The following week they used Sharpies to add silhouettes to their paintings. At first I was going to have students do trees, like in one of my samples at the top. But, they had their own ideas. Which in my opinion is a good thing!

Here are some finished paintings. Some appear to have a holiday theme. It's all good! Oh and I also brought in the concept of positive and negative space. Which was fun.....

   

 One of my nieces spotted some paintings I did for my daughter and decided to buy me canvas to make her some paintings. She is very athletic and was hoping for silhouettes in the poses of the sports she likes to do. I had so much fun doing the lesson above. Check out the paintings I did for her. (She will be crocheting some ear warmers for me.)

 

 Oh and this month when my School Arts Magazine came I checked it out and saw that I was published again! It's exciting! Makes me want to write some more!! YEAH!

 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. As you can see I had some fun painting, I also did some sewing and rearranged furniture. My husband said it's time for me to go back to work! Hahaha, but I will be off again in 3 weeks!!

Thanks for reading!