Romero Britto Pond Life or Frog Watercolor Art Project

 

My 2nd grade students are studying Pond Life and Romero Britto is so much fun I thought they would enjoy making a bright and colorful frog in his style.

I showed them several of Romero Britto's Frogs, fish, etc... to give them an idea of his work.

Then we did a directed drawing of a frog, they didn't have to do a frog, if they felt confident enough they could do another pond animal.  

I like to do directed drawings as an option because some students are so intimidated by drawing and also it helps them to draw nice and big and fill the page with the painting instead of a little frog in the center of the page.  They also learn how to translate an image into lines and shapes which will help them draw on their own.

We started by doing the middle line between the eyes and then added the two bumps for the eyes.  

Then the lines down and outward from the eyes and an arc for the base of the face.  Two curved lines for each of the front feet, the bottom of the front feet and add the inside curved lines for the front feet. Finally the two bumps for the back feet and the toes at the bottom.

Once they had the outline we used up to 5 straight or curved lines to divide the space within the drawing. 

I asked them to do their best to create balance with the spaces.

I kept the Britto Images of Frogs on the Promethius for them to refer to.

We had already discussed Britto's use of pattern within his painting.  He puts his initials in his designs so I encouraged my students to also add their initials to their design.  We discussed balance and how he balances his colors and his patterns.  I asked them to look at their frogs and be sure they were balanced in terms of pattern.  

The next step is to go over their lines with a fine point Sharpie which won't bleed when we do the watercolor over the top.

They erased their pencil lines and prepared to start painting.

We discussed warm and cool colors, complimentary colors and balancing colors like Romero Britto does.

We used liquid watercolor because it is so vibrant.  

I only gave them one color at a time and asked them to paint one or two sections of their animal.  

Each time I gave them another color I asked them to balance this color with what had already been painted and to think about which colors look best next to each other.

They really had fun doing this project and were happy with their finished work.  Below are several examples of what my students created.

Some of the artists chose to cut their frog out and put it on another piece of paper.  Others painted the background - I love how they turned out!

Andy Warhol Endangered Animal Elementary Art Project

 

Our 3rd grade students are in an animal unit and they were interested in doing some Andy Warhol inspired art.

You will need:

White paper

Pencils and erasers

Foam plates

Water based Block printing ink

Breyers and plexiglass for rolling the ink

Colored pencils to add color to the print 

A blow dryer if you can't let them dry before coloring

Background paper in bright colors

Although Andy used screen printing we will use a block printing process to make ours.

Students will draw their animal on copy paper and then tape them to foam plates.  

I buy regular foam plates at the store and cut the edges off to get a nice square or round flat piece of foam.

I made stencils of the outside shape of the animals in the size of the foam plates.  That gives them a head start on the inside details.

These are the stencils I made:

Once they have chosen their animal, (and if they don't want to use the stencil they don't have to) they can start filling in the details inside the shape.  I put the Warhol art on the screen for them to refer to and also showed them black and white versions to help them find the lines.  I demonstrated how to add the details  by finding the clues the shape gives you.

This simplifies the animal and makes it less intimidating to draw.

After they draw their animal and we tape it to the foam they trace over their drawing making a light impression on the foam.

Then they remove the paper and retrace their animal deeper into the foam to create distinct lines for better print quality.

This is the faint image after tracing, below is the inked plate after retracing the lines deeper.

Here is the print before color is added using colored pencils.

When the students are ready to color their print we talk about warm and cool colors.  If you print with a cool color of ink like we did then warm colors will really PoP, but you can also still use cool colors.

We also talked about complimentary colors, and layering colors like Andy Warhol does.

Below are my students amazing examples: