1st grade has now begun to study the color wheel a little bit more in depth. We spoke about some of the things that are warm such as, fire and the sun. The students were then asked what colors they thought of when they imagined those warm things and they came up with orange, yellow and red which are also know as "warm colors" on the color wheel. We then spoke about some of the things that are cold such as ice, snow and water. When asked what colors they thought of when they thought of cold the students came up with blue, green and purple, also known as the "cool colors". After this discussion the students were given a guided drawing of half a sun and half of a moon. Around the outside of the their drawing they drew some things that reminded them of both warm and cool. They outlined their drawings with sharpie and colored with craypas on the sun side only with red, yellow and orange. On the moon side, they colored using only blue, green and purple. They then will paint their backgrounds using watercolors using only warm colors on the sun side and cool colors on the moon side. The result will be a beautiful mixed media project that explores the color wheel in a different aspect other than just primary and secondary colors. 

Learning Objectives: The color wheel, warm colors, cool colors.

ART WORDS:
Warm colors: colors on the color wheel that are consistent of reds, yellows and oranges.
Cool colors: colors on the color wheel that are consistent of blues, greens and purples. 

Class 1-202 is on the move because I have the pleasure of seeing them twice a week. All other 1st grade classes will eventually be getting to each of the projects, this class is just moving faster because of their extra class. That being said, 1st graders are now learning about the artist Wassily Kandinsky and his artwork. With our knowledge of now both shape and color, the students will be putting those 2 elements together to create an artwork that is inspired by Kandinsky's artwork by painting 8 different concentric circles like that of the artwork, “Squares With Concentric Circles”. The students were first introduced to the artists life and artworks through a google search. We discussed his use of line, shape and color in Kandinsky's artwork.  We reviewed what the word abstract means and spoke about the differences between representational abstract and non-representational abstract. (I'm not so sure our 1st graders will remember these words but they certainly understood that there are 2 types of abstract art.) We looked closely at Kandisnky's artwork, "Concentric Circles". The students noticed that he used and mixed together both primary and secondary colors and that he used only 2 shapes in this artwork, squares and circles. We discussed what the word concentric meant as well. The students were then given a paper that was folded into 8 boxes. They drew a small circle that got bigger and bigger with each ring of circles in every square. They were then given oil pastels to color in each ring a different color, they were encouraged to overlap and mix the colors in between each ring. They then were given watercolors to create the background of square, using only one color just as Kandinsky did. The results were these beautiful pieces of abstract artwork that reviewed some of the most important elements of design: line, shape and color. 

Learning Objectives: Exploring 3 elements of art into one project, color, shape, line.

ART WORDS:
Concentric: circles, arcs, or other shapes that share the same center, the larger often completely surrounding the smaller. (a circle that gets larger and larger)
Non-respresentational abstract:  artwork that completely consists of only line shapes and colors and resembles nothing of real life.
Representational abstract: We know what the image is but it is distorted or created with colors that are not like real life. (i.e. a portrait of someone with purple skin.)

Here is what we spoke about when google searching Wassily Kandinsky! (click the link below for a .pdf file)