Project Explanation

For our third lesson, students will be encouraged to think about their surroundings and the places around them. This helps us dive deeper into the idea of place being an influence in artwork.  Students will do an ideation activity out of  “How to be an Explorer of the World” where they will look at one spot in the room and find ten things they never noticed before as a warm up.  Once they are in that mindset, we will all go outside and they will document the details of their surrounding that they may or may not have noticed before. Students will create a mixed media piece (either 2D or 3D) inspired by their observed surroundings.

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Enduring Understanding

• Artists make connections between their art and the world around them by observation
• Artists convey meaning by transferring observations into artwork using artistic attributes and principles of multi-media.

Skills

• Students will be able to use mixed-media techniques to create multiple patterns, textures, and colors
• Students will be able to closely observe their surroundings make a work of art based on observation 

Art Focus

Place

Learning Targets

• I can connect art to the world around me.
• I can create art with multiple patterns, textures, and colors using mixed-media materials.

Literary Focus

​Vocabulary:  Observation, mixed media
Literacy:  Ideation/brainstorming around observations of Polaris 

Concepts

• Purpose
• Observation
• Connection

Documentation

Students began this project by exploring mixed-media materials to discover what types of patterns, textures, colors, and effects they could create. After gaining a better understanding of the materials, students began brainstorming for their final artwork by closely observing their surroundings.

This student explained how she was able to draw with pastel and then alter its color by layering tissue paper over it.

When asked what this student was working on with pastels, she replied, "I'm using my fingers to make texture!" ​

​"I'm making spirals with different things. First I used the pastels, then I used these [pipe cleaners], now I'm gonna try string."

Another student wanted to create a road and discovered that a streamer worked much better than using a pipe cleaner.

Student explaining how she used and layered pastels and other materials

​This student experimented with a  number of materials because he wanted to, "see what texture" each  would create.

After observing the playground, one student conveyed what they saw. "I saw a triangle and squares and circles and lots of straight lines."

​This student discovered that observation can be done with more than just sight. "I heard the sewer! I didn't know it was there."