The week after winter break was up in the air. Due to construction, we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to use our art room and we didn’t know if we would have easy access to supplies. I planned for most of my classes to complete observational drawings during that week period, since they all could use the same supplies and learning to observe the edges and shapes of objects is great training for the eye.
It turns out we were able to use our art room and I left the flowers out all week for the kids to draw. It was one of the most relaxing weeks of the year! The students were also thrilled to try out watercolor pencils, which they rarely get a chance to use. I don’t know why I haven’t used them more often, because the students love the watercolor effects.
Basically, the students chose from my selection of fake flowers and fruits to draw with pencil. There were plant and flower reference books available to use if they wanted to look up a particular flower. I showed the students how I observe the edges and shapes of the flowers while drawing them. I also encouraged them to overlap their flowers and fill up the page.
After drawing with pencil, they used watercolor pencils to color their flowers. I encouraged them to blend colors and layer them for added depth. Using a paintbrush dipped in water, the colors were blended and spread out.
Students had the option of outlining their flowers in black marker or pen if they wanted to define the edges more.
These flowers were drawn by kids in 1st grade through 6th grade. Yes, there is a 1st grade drawing shown in this blog post!
This ended up being one of my favorite projects of the year because the students all tried very hard and each of the pictures turned out so beautiful and unique.
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