This past Wednesday we had a fun discussion about the Chinese New Year. The majority of the students knew about this holiday and how this year is celebrated as the year of the rat. During this holiday it’s very common to light fireworks and light lanterns to scare away any evil spirits. So in the spirit of this holiday we decided to create lanterns! During this lesson we also focused on two very important elements of art: Line and Pattern.
To begin we started another discussion about different kinds of lines the students could use on their lanterns. Making sure to put all of our ideas up on the white board so they can reference it while we work. We came up with so many different kinds of lines before we began. Each student was given their pencils and paper and was instructed to create a composition with different types of lines covering the page leaving some open space for the next part of this lesson. After we used our pencils each student was given black tempera paint and a paintbrush to go over their lines to make them bold.
While the paint was drying, we discussed what a pattern was and created examples on the board. Once our paint was dry the students used markers to fill in the white space between the lines with different types of patterns. The students really enjoyed working with the different materials for the same project. Soon Greta and I went around the room and helped students create their lanterns and added the streamers to the bottom once they were done.
We had such a great time learning about two very important elements of art. Line and Patterns can be seen in all kinds of different artworks! I’m very excited to see what we’ll be doing this week!