Thursday, September 27, 2012

Expression Gourds


I took inspiration from the funny faces on the pumpkins in this art lesson from Deep Space Sparkle. I wanted a lesson that was Autumnal and helped my students to better understand the concept of facial expression in art work. 

On Day 1 of the project we talked about gourds and I brought a bunch of real gourds in to examine with our eyes, noses, and fingers. We made some funky paste paper with some bright Fall colors hand-mixed with cornstarch to give the paint texture. We used some recycled cut plastic hand tools to make repetitive line patterns in the wet paint.

On Day 2, I put some trays with scraps of black and white paper on each table and jumped right into deconstructing the idea of facial expression. When I teach expression, I focus only on mouth and eyebrow placement. I made this poster which displays my good friend Rex with detachable eyebrow and mouth shapes. I use Rex to demonstrate how the direction our eyebrows are drawn sends a very specific emotive impression. I have students come up and take turns matching his facial features to a feeling.
The Rex-pression chart showing angry, surprised, thoughtful, and frustrated.
I totally love how thoughtful these expressions turned out. Way to go 2nd Grade!



5 comments:

  1. Did you have tracers for the gourd shapes or did they just cut them from observation? And I love the rex-expression poster. Genius. I am pinning many things. ;)

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  2. Hey Girlfriend,

    I LOVE the Gourd-ies! Tres' cute and muy colorful. I am so stealing Rex-pression, too!
    Although I might make Beks-spression, a more feminine-centric character, or Lex-spression, a more Superman-centric character......I'm just foolin' with you! Ha! Can you tell I've finally lost my mind? Lonnng Daaay..... Went to a Teacher workshop tonight at our world famous ( :) ) Joslyn Art Museum and learned how to paint with something called Liquin, an additive for oil paints that make them dry in 4 hours! Heard a great lecture about famous illustrators and had a great tour of the museum's Remington sculptures and paintings. Oh well, gonna go catch some beauty sleep! Laters!


    :)Pat

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  3. I especially like the textured paper using cornstarch - it has possibilities for so many applications :)

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  4. Thank you for sharing this. I have been hearing about *cheese painting* gourds from Rose and it was nice to see what she meant. She loves art class!

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    1. Thanks, Evan! You are my VERY FIRST parent comment on C vs. S!!! I am absolutely delighted that you checked out the blog and am tickled to hear that Rose is enjoying art class. I am a big fan of her art as well. She is an extremely creative young lady.

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