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.

Yo Llama!

I am three weeks in to teaching at a bilingual elementary, teacher-lead charter school.  Many of our students speak Spanish at home and we work to help our students gain English proficiency while retaining their Latino/Hispanic heritage.  The first quarter of school has a theme of Hispanic heritage with two grade levels of students learning about the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, or Tainos.  My first graders and fifth graders are learning about the ancient Inca Empire. Both grades are engaged in llama art projects that are very different, but fit well with the age range and skills the students should be acquiring in art.


The first graders are making a llama collage that involves several stages to help them with drawing shapes, cutting, painting, and creating patterns.  While looking at pictures of llamas in Machu Picchu, we discussed the characteristics of llamas and decided what kinds of shapes we could use to draw them.  Next students were given brown, white, and black paints and discovered how dipping your brush into some of each coloring will help mix the paint on the paper.  We also painted mountains using images of Machu Picchu.  Once the llamas were dry, we cut them out and glued them onto the mountain background.

The students then learned about Machu Picchu and Peruvian textiles on a short video I shared with them. We talked about what kinds of shapes to use to draw some of the Inca houses on the mountains we had painted.  We decided to include roads too, which the Incas made many miles of to travel the mountain sides with their llamas.

To finish the llama collage art, students were asked to choose a large piece of contruction paper and glue the llama picture in the middle.  We observed Peruvian textile making and what kinds of patterns and shapes are often used.  Students then practiced making a pattern and are just finishing up adding the final pattern to the larger paper border.  This week they will be writing a learning log to review all the information they have learned about the Inca Empire through art.

At the same time, the fifth grade students are also making a llama project, this time in the form of a llama sculpture.  We started the project by learning a little about how important llamas are to the Inca Empire. We also drew a llama in our sketchbooks to help us observe and realize the qualities llamas have that should be shown in our sculptures.  Next, each student used pipe cleaners to build an armature for the llama sculpture.  Then we used newspaper and tape to crumple and sculpt onto the armature to add "meat to the bones."

Students are now beginning to wrap their armatures in natural colors of yarn.  As we started this process, we talked about where the yarn comes from and that llamas have woolly fur like sheep that can be made into yarn and then dyed and woven into beautiful, functional works of art.  Students were impressed with the colorful patterns and designs that are woven into Peruvian textiles and its an art form that is still carried on and created today.

To finish the project, we will be making little blankets for the llamas on fabric and designing our own colorful patterns on them with fabric markers.  The finished llamas will be part of a display for our Hispanic heritage celebration later this month.