Chocolate Bar model: Year 3/4

I did a unit on Pop Art and Andy Warhol to fit in with a Food theme a few years ago, and students made these models of a “Favourites” chocolate bar (obviously ‘popular’ food rather than healthy food!) The students had already created a digital Pop Art artwork using either a chocolate bar or an everyday food item, see here.

Students used a combination of air-dry clay and paper clay. They formed the shape of the chocolate bar (wrapper) with air dry clay, then painted it the colour of the background. They then used coloured paper clay (Magiclay / Modelmagic) to form the letters of the name of the bar and pressed it lightly onto the base.

To display these at an Art show I mounted them on white card and put them in a black frame.

Still Life Fruit on a plate ~ Year 5

There are so many artists that do still life of fruit and vegetables, but I often like to introduce the students to Australian artists. These fruit / vegetable still life were inspired by Lucy Culliton from New South Wales who paints landscapes and portraits as well. I found some artworks she did from the early 2000’s and thought they would be great to view and discuss for their own ideas. This painting of Lucy’s has different plates to note the patterns and how she gives form to her fruit with light and dark tones using tints and shades of the colours.

Students began by choosing a fruit or vegetable they wanted to draw and paint (from Google images or from some photos I provided) They traced a circle for the plate and sketched their food from a reference photo. They then added a pattern around the edge of the plate.

I demonstrated some techniques with watercolour paints for them to try, being careful to not overpaint it initially, keeping it fairly light and watery, then adding more opaque layers on the darker areas shown in their reference photo.

Students looked at some images of plates with patterned edges or designed their own, in grey lead first, then coloring in with pencils.

To help give the fruit and plate dimension, students added charcoal and smudged to blend it.

Lesson plan aligned to Victorian Curriculum for Year 5-6, learning intention and success criteria, lesson steps, artist artwork response sheet, photo reference images of fruit on plates and ideas for patterned plates; student self evaluation questions to discuss or write about.

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Fruit & Vegetable Characters: Mulga (Joel Moore) style ~ Yr 5-6

You can only love the fun and zany art of Joel Moore, aka Mulga. ( @mulgatheartist ) His characters and scenery are bright and imaginative. We looked at his mural of fruit characters that he did in a shopping centre in Sydney as well as his process of drawing, colouring and outlining his pictures through some videos on YouTube.

After watching Mulga’s art process on several videos, students completed the following sheet. (It could be used on Seesaw, rather than printing out.) His ‘Art Process’ is 1. pencil sketch 2. colouring /painting 3. Outlining and adding texture marks in black fine liner.

mulga-the-artist_sheet Download

Students chose a fruit or vegetable as a character, sketch it out in pencil, with Mulga style glasses, nose, moustache/ beard and mouth. They then coloured with coloured markers.

Darker shades of colour can be added if applicable, or use a fine line black marker to add texture lines or shapes to the fruit. Everything is then outlined, before being cut out.

To make the background, a colour cover paper was chosen that works well with their fruit/ veg. Folding up a piece of white paper several times, a shape, like a cloud, star etc. was cut out and glued onto the cover paper background and then their character glued on.

Finally once complete, students gave their character a name and wrote a silly story about it (like Mulga does).

Cut Fruit on a Placemat ~Polly Jones inspired Still Life – Year 4

Year 4 students were introduced to Texan artist, Polly Jones by way of a series of works she did featuring cut fruit on a placemat. The students chose a fruit and used an image to draw from as a reference, then painted with watercolour paints.

The students had been leaning about mixing tints and shades with acrylic paint and for this project they were exploring mixing light and dark tones with watercolour paints. I was so pleased with their application of techniques.

Other concepts reviewed were complementary colours (opposites on the colour wheel) and then students learnt about analogous colours (colours next to each other on the colour wheel).

Learning Intentions, success criteria, lesson activities step by step, artwork analysis sheet, colour theory exploration sheet, artist example artwork, student work, self evaluation sheet, photo reference images.

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Fruit & Vegetable Collages ~ Year 1

Year One were working on a healthy food theme and these simple collages were made with painted paper and newspaper, inspired by Megan Coyle‘s collages made with magazines. We looked at her artwork (mainly food and still life collages) so the students could see the overlapping and slightly different shades of a colour.

I drew the shape of different fruit and vegetables onto A5 size paper (half A4) so it wasn’t too arduous for the kids to fill with overlapping paper pieces. I had a box of painted paper scraps so the students searched through for the colours they needed, (maybe finding different shades of one colour) cut them into smallish pieces and glued them inside the drawn shape.

Next lesson they used cut up newspaper (with just print so it was fairly uniform) to fill the negative space around their fruit or vegetable. I then coated them with PVA white glue which dries clear to seal and keep any flappy bits down. They were then mounted on black card for display.

Watermelon Smile Portraits~ Year 3 Introduction to Mixing Tints

I have seen this art lesson on a number of blogs and Instagram. I used this lesson as a simple way to introduce students to mixing tints (and talk about shades)

Students first drew a face shape large in the middle of an A3 portrait piece of paper (I demonstrated). They then drew a semi circle to cover the bottom half and drew the nose, eyes, eyebrows, ears and hair.

Three students shared a daisy plate pallet with dark green and white. First they all used the unmixed green to paint the round edge of the semi circle. Then one student scoops a big blob of white with their brush and mixes it in with the green for them all to paint the second line inside the dark green. Another blob of white is added to make a lighter green for the third line of green, slightly blending at the edges.

We had time to paint the face and a pair of hands that they traced and cut out.

Next lesson, students painted the background and shoulders. They could use tempera paint cakes or liquid water colours which dry fast. I had the red and white paint ready in daisy plates ready for mixing to paint the watermelon flesh. They used the red paint to fill the semi circle leaving a strip on the round edge to use white mixed with red to make pink.

Black seeds were painted with a thin brush and tempera paint. Then the hands were glued on with the thumbs to the outside, fingers over the edge of the watermelon.

Lesson plan with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson activities, examples.

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Watermelons ~ Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera inspired ~Colour mixing tints-Year 4

Inspired by Frida Kahlo’s ‘Viva la Vida, Watermelons’ and Diego Rivera’s ‘The Watermelons’ students first discussed and compared the two artworks, then drew their own compositions of watermelons – whole, half and sliced, the shapes overlapping.

Looking at images of watermelons, we talked about the different colour values and how to make them using tints- adding white to a colour. (We discussed how adding black would make a shade, a darker tone of the colour to use for shadows). Students used the dark green first then added white to make tints to add the lighter tones and did the same with red.

Victorian Curriculum lesson plan with learning intentions, success criteria, lesson activities, focus artwork and student examples, Venn diagram comparison worksheet and student evaluation sheet.

AUD $3 for email download of this lesson plan

Build a Burger Mixed Media Collage – Yr 1 / 2

I have seen many lessons and variations of this activity, but this idea came from ‘Kids Artists- Building Sandwiches’ here.

The Year 1 & 2 classes were working on a Food theme in their classrooms, and I usually tie in with their inquiry unit somehow. I introduced them to a couple of artists who made food related art. One was Claes Oldenburg, Swiss born American. They were fascinated by his larger than life food sculptures, especially the outdoor ones. For this project we looked at his soft sculptures- Floor Burger 1962, and Giant BLT (Bacon Lettuce Tomato) Sandwich 1963.

We discussed what they thought the sculptures were made of (materials & techniques) and watched a video of curators putting together the components for a BLT model for a Oldenburg exhibition.

Learning Intentions & Success Criteria for these lessons:

I am learning about Claes Oldenburg and his soft and hard sculptures of food.
I will learn about shape, variety and texture so I can represent various items of food for a burger / sandwich. I can use a variety of papers to make shapes to represent various foods to go in a “sandwich/burger”. I can overlap the foods when gluing down.

The idea was to “build” a tall sandwich / burger.

Each student started by choosing some painted paper to glue at the bottom of a long piece of paper (A2 cut lengthways) for a table cloth and then gluing a paper plate cut in half on top.

Next they cut two burger bun shape from ribbed cardboard and on of these is glued to the plate. They then start at the bottom gluing their “food” – painted paper, tissue paper coloured paper cut, scrunched or torn into a shape of sandwich fillings. They used a hole punch to make a yellow card look like swiss cheese. Tissue paper was great for lettuce and shaved ham! They needed overlap the food slightly and not glue down everything down flat, to help give the sandwich some form.

The Achievement Standards by the end of Year 2 (Victorian Curriculum) are: Students make artworks using different materials, techniques and processes to express their ideas, observations and imagination. Students describe artworks they make and view, including where and why artworks are made and viewed.

ASSESSMENT: To assess this activity I used the seesaw app which all student artwork (and sometimes work in progress) is photographed in their individual “folio”. Firstly I uploaded a photo of the Oldenburg BLT for students to add a recording of what they thought the item was, what it was made of and why it might have been made. After students completed their artwork they commented on their own piece, describing the components, techniques and different materials they used to represent the food.

Guiseppe Arcimboldo Food Portraits — Year 3-4

These lessons were part of the Year 3 & 4 Inquiry Unit of ‘Food Sources’. We began by viewing artworks by Guiseppe Arcimboldo, completing an “I see, I think, I wonder” then shared thoughts, describing, and discussing. We watched a couple of YouTube videos about the artist, before comparing artworks and making our own inspired by Arcimboldo’s portraits.

I went to a market and bought a variety of fruit and veg including $1 bags of food on their last legs! I also got students to bring in pieces of fruit and vegetables to use to make a food portrait. I set up a table with the fruit and veg in containers, some cut in half and 5 face templates to work on. The other students were working on drawing a food face portrait.

Full lesson plan is available below with activities, video links I used, learning intentions and success criteria, Venn Diagram sheet and student evaluation sheet.

AUD $2 for email download Food Faces lesson (Giuseppe Arcimbold inspired)