I love teaching art, but feel I don't nail the basic elements/concepts as well as I should and am trying to focus on developing a better art program for my students. I found tons of great ideas for warm/cool color activites, but I am lacking in interesting focused "line" activities.
Anyone have any good suggestions for art lessons focused around lines, that are interesting for the kids?
We do line art in which we deal with the emotional qualities of lines. Calm lines are smooth and only slightly wavy while hyper or angry lines are jagged and harsh-looking. The students like to listen to music and draw lines to go with the emotions of the music as well. Vocabulary introduced includes vertical, horizontal, jagged, smooth, peaceful, energy, harsh, and others. Students also like to make a picture of a good dream (using smooth, wavy lines) and a bad dream (jagged rough lines throughout). The details of the dream aren't the important part - it is how the dream makes you feel. If you use a folded piece of paper, this can also be a compare/contrast activity. Have fun!
The students really enjoyed the following activity (hopefully I can explaing it clearly!)
1) using an 8 1/2 x11 piece of paper divide it into approx. 9 sections by intersecting a number of curved lines. The sections do not all need to be the same size or the same shape but but something the might resemble a rectangle if straight lines were used. Make the appropriate number for your students. They need to be fairly thick lines
2) Once the students know all the different types of lines (curved, diagnol, horizontal, bent, ect.) They fill each section with only one kind of line. You can restrict colours if you like or let them go wild with colour/
3) Once all sections are filled cut on the oringinal lines to different depths, but never all the way through! Most of the outside lines should be cut, but experiment how far you can cut in before things start to become a mess!
4) Take a piece of construction paper (again you can restrict if you like or go wild with colour) and begin stapling the outside edges but since they have been cut manipulate them to move in different directions, once they are in the desired position staple in place. By Using a long reaching stapler you can reach the center of the page to really manipulate the work. Some pieces got stapled once others maybe had 3 staples, it just depends on the look students are trying to achieve, it will be very wavy in the end. This takes some practice but in the end you have created an interesting piece of 3D art.
Hope this is clear... unfortunately I do not have pictures to share!
Fold a piece of paper into evenly into thirds both ways. You will have nine rectangles. (Or you can make or find a black line master that has 9 rectangles or more if you wish). In each rectangle the students draw some type of line - wavy, zig zag, diagonal, etc. It looks good if it is done with a black pen or a fine tipped marker. Once that is done, you make a spider (3D is possible) and then attach it to the first completed piece with a folded tab so that it hovers over the paper. I've also made it with a fall leaf shape instead of the spider. You can use any motif you wish to suit the season, etc. Mount the finished product on a background paper.
There is a picture of Van Gogh's Starry Night made with lines at this link. It uses different lines. It could be used as it is or it could ne an example that kids could use as a sample. I usually tell them some background info about Van Gogh, but do not show them a copy of the piece. They colour it according to what they think that he may have painted it. Many usually get it pretty close.
Check out the link (above) because there are some other art ideas or projects that you can do using some of the printouts. I don't usually just give the printout to colour. The printouts have often been a springboard.
Thanks Jude for the link to deepspacesparkle, it is now a website I am following via Twitter. I was struggling to find an activity to do with smallies to introduce them to line and the turtle activity is great; a bit more exciting the just sectioning a piece of paper. I am going to do it with year two as a refresher of line, so their art should come out a bit better than that of a kindy kid.
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08-18-2009, 09:58 PM
