3rd-Grade Art Projects

I was asked by a 3rd-grade teacher to teach a unit on drawing, inspired by Ivan the Gorilla, whom the class was reading about. We also learned how to draw Ruby the Elephant. The subject was further inspired by artists who had painted portraits of gorillas. I even showed Gorillas as Artists, depicting Koko the gorilla and her abstract artwork. See WeDrawAnimals.com.

I next showed students how to draw leaf shapes and handed out sheets of paper with lines representing half of a leaf. Students practiced drawing leaves by completing the other half of each leaf. Next, we discussed the concept of positive-negative space. I showed the vase with two faces and several other optical illusions based on the concept.

The project was to create a leaf pattern making use of three leaf shapes and the negative scrap left behind when they were cut out. We used fall colors as our inspiration.

Another fun lesson is teaching children how to draw their self-portrait Picasso style. I showed a brief history of the artist, including: pablo-picasso-self-portrait-style-evolution.

I also showed a self-portrait painted by Emma Watson and asked students if they could guess the artist. I demonstrated how they could draw their own face from the front and one side (in profile) on the same picture (like a Picasso).

The final project was inspired by American painter, Arthur Wesley Dow, who is famous for teaching artist, Georgia O'Keeffe, and photographers, Alfred Steiglitz (O‘Keefe‘s husband) and Edward Steichen. Learning about Line, Mass, and Color, we made landscapes using black construction paper, thick white oil pastel lines, and brightly-colored (chalk) pastels. The results were spectacular!