Fall Primary Color Pumpkin Project

One thing I have learned as an art teacher, is that kids love to mix their own paint colors.  While this could easily become a wasteful, messy nightmare at the elementary level, I have a few strategies to avoid an explosion of paint in the art room while allowing the students to experience color mixing.

My first graders learned about the primary and secondary colors this fall to make some mixed media pumpkin art.  In the first session of this project, they began with drawing by looking at real pumpkins purchased for my still life set up that changes monthly.  Students were encouraged to look for the different shapes and lines they could use to draw a pumpkin instead of just starting with a generic circle or oval.

In the second class period of this project, we talked about primary and secondary colors.  Many students already knew what the primary colors were and some were able to tell us what colors to mix together to make secondary colors.  I also showed them a great music video about primary colors by Ok Go that was aired on Sesame Street.  Some of them still sing the song!

To keep the paint mess to a minimum, I poured out puddles of yellow, red and blue paint onto community trays that would be shared by 3-4 students.  I also modeled how to start with yellow since its the lightest color and then how to mix a little bit of red to make orange using a wet into wet painting technique. I explained how to work quickly but neatly, slathering down a layer of yellow paint on my pumpkin drawing and then, without washing my brush, I touched it into the red paint and mixed it right on the paper.  In first grade, color mixing is like magic, and the kids were so excited when they saw the colors change.

The students washed their brushes in ice cream buckets on their tables between making orange and making green.  They then painted their pumpkin leaves with yellow and then dipped the brush into a tiny bit of blue, and voila! they made green.  The community trays of paint, two on each table was easily and cleanly used by two classes of first grade students to mix colors. Using trays to share between students and pouring the paints out as they are needed has helped to prevent wasting paint and keeps clean up quick and easy.

Students finished this pumpkin project in a third class period by cutting out their pumpkins and leaves and gluing them onto purple paper.  Using chalk, they drew stars to show a night sky in the pumpkin patch and completed it with green cut paper for grass.