Painting and Materials Exploration

Some of my younger students possess an incredible, exuberant energy. Seeing their potential for dynamic brushstrokes and mark-making always inspires my own painting exploration. I've always loved painting. In my own early years, the medium had been my go-to as a quick way to record my creative ideas and create the images I had in my head.

These are examples from a lesson I had designed for first grade. They were directly inspired by their energy to create. I had the work of French painter Philip Guston in mind when developing this lesson. The objective was to experiment with tempera paint as a material. Students learned about layering and using the terms over, on top of, under, and below. By this time, students had already learned basic color theory and could create secondary colors. In this art project, some students had begun to experiment with white and make tints.

There was also some math integration in this lesson. Students added artist tape to their art and later were able to take away the tape. They needed to keep count of their pieces of tape to ensure they peeled off all the pieces later on. They then added it back to their artwork as textured details. From these actions student could understand how the terms add, take away, and subtract transfer across different subjects and activities.

Students were then able to display their artwork and present their work at show and tell.