During this project, artists finish their superheroes with watercolors.
Monitor your class. Classes work at different paces, and some classes will need two days to complete their project. If some of your student artists need time to finish, you can use the sixth day making sure each student artist who is finished fills out an artist statement, and have student artists who are done help you to document their artworks, and set up a display for them.
Students will be working individually, so have materials prepared to go out to tables/or desks depending on how your class is set up. Painting can be a little trickier to manage for cleanup, so stop a little bit sooner than you usually would. Have a plan for where wet paintings will dry, how brushes will be washed (a few helpers, or a bucket of water), and how to get paint off of hands (wet wipes are great!)
Drawings from lessons 2 & 3, pan watercolors, brushes, water, paper towels
Artist Statement
N/A
Pass out extra watercolor paper, brushes, water and paper towels before looking at the inspiration image or playing the video. Have the students paint a spot of color about the size of a ping-pong ball at the top—this is color that needs to dry.
NOTE: During the first portion of the video, where it goes over technique, you will have students work alongside the film, pausing it as they complete each step when the video says ‘pause’.
Check for understanding by asking, “Who was listening closely that can sum up what we are doing today?” Make sure that student artists can list all the steps and clarify anything that needs clarifying.
The students work independently on their work as the teacher circulates. Foster strong work habits by commenting on student artists who are focused on their work as well as student artist who seems be pushing themselves to try new things.
At this point, the focus of the class period should be getting student artists to think about the different techniques that they are using as they paint so that the application of paint becomes more intentional. Comment on how the paint is being applied; you can comment on colors being kept clean and separate by the student slowly applying paint and allowing it to dry between sections. Or, comment on students who have intentionally blended two colors, or used water to effectively ‘fan out’ their color. Comment on the diversity of lines when students are pressing down softly as well as hard.
STUDENTS PRESENT THE WORK OF THE STUDENT ARTIST THAT THEY INTERVIEWED
Depending on the teacher’s style of classroom management, it might be helpful to only choose and train a few kids to clean. Make sure to train these helpers well in advance so that you aren’t left with a messy room.
Clean-up times will vary with materials; get to know your class and allow 5-10 minutes depending on how efficient they are and whether or not the material was messy.
Have the rest of the class gather close, choose a partner, and interview them about the artistic decisions that they made.
Have students come up and present the work of the person they interviewed. The artist is not allowed to say anything until the end.
*It might be worth setting aside some time to look at all the work their fellow classmates made; whether through a presentation in the hall or setting them out on a table and having a walk through.
If a student paints an area that they didn’t mean to paint, tell them to let it dry, then they can add another color on top of it and work it into their piece. Alternately, you can use clean water and a paper towel to blot the color up, but it won’t remove it perfectly.
As students finish, tell them that artists often have to write an artist’s statement that tells their viewers what they made and why. Ask them to write an artist statement using the Lower Academy Artist Statement Handout and attach it to the back of their work.
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