I just taught the goldfish project in Mr. Mercuro's 4th grade class last Thursday. We started with a powerpoint about Matisse (if anyone is interested in using my slides, email me at brooke@hellrey.com and I will email them to you).
Here are a few tips I learned while working on this project...
I had them follow along step by step for this project, using the ladybug to show each step. We drew our cylinders by using a ruler and drawing two parallel lines, then drawing an ellipse at the top and trying to match the curve for the bottom and the water line.
Use crayons for:
1. 3-4 fish (red or orange),
2. water ripples (white),
3. specks of light (green and yellow),
4. seaweed (optional if kids want to).
When using the watercolors, have them draw the top water line first, so they know not to go past that top line. Because they are cutting out the fish tank afterwards, they can use the sides of their paper to test their washes. They also don't have to stay in the lines perfectly. We talked about adding lots of water for light colors, and layering blue, green and even yellow to get different shades of water. Have them draw the top part of the cylinder with a light gray (using their black paint, but adding lots of water to get gray).
Here's a few tips on making the patterned background. It's three basic shapes to make the background.
It's just 1 + 2 + 3 glued onto a larger sheet. We had them fold their patterned papers and cut along the fold. Piece 1 is just a full sheet minus a few inches on the right side. Piece 2 is whatever width they need to reach the end of the paper, but it won't be long enough to reach the bottom edge, so they'll need to piece it. Piece 3 is glued on top of 2 so they don't need to try to match the diagonal line on both piece 2 and 3.
Here are the finished projects!
Looks great!
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