Alcott Art Web Page -- Paint

Paint

Painting is about translating ideas into shape, line, and color. Through experimentation and practice, students learn to mix all the colors they need to use for their painting ideas. Given a palette of red, yellow, blue, black, and white paint, students learn that there is an infinite variety of colors available to them. Colors can be light or dark, and more or less intense. Lines can be thick, thin, wiggly, straight, curved or sharp. Shapes can be big, small, round, angular, overlapping, touching, or far apart. As they mature and become more competent using paint, students also learn how to incorporate texture into their paintings, by varying their brush strokes and the thickness of the paint. The challenge for students is to figure out their own ways to combine all of these possibilities in their paintings.

We reference Experience and Art: Teaching Children to Paint, by Nancy Smith, throughout the painting strand.

Kindergarten

Composition and color mixing:

What happens when you mix colors?
Will you paint your shapes close together, far apart, or touching each other?

Narrative:

What kind of animal will you paint?
What parts does your animal have?
What shapes will you need to paint for each part?

First Grade

Narrative:

What did you do outside when it snowed?
What special clothes did you wear to play out in the snow?
How many people will be in your painting?
Will you show the snow coming down, or will it be after it stopped snowing?

Second Grade

Size relationships:

How do animals take care of their babies?
Will the animals be close together or far apart?
How big will the adult animal be, and how small will the baby be?
How will you paint your animal's habitat?

Third Grade

Figure/ground relationships:

What's something you like to do outside in the snow?
Who will be in your painting?
How big will you make the people?
How will you paint snow?

Fourth Grade

Texture and mark-making:

What are all the different kinds of storms that you know about?
What does it feel like outside during a storm?
What does it look like outside during a storm?
How can you use your brush to show wind, rain, snow, hail, etc.?
What colors will you need for the sky?
Will you just show the sky, or will you also include plants, trees, buildings, people, or animals in your painting?

Gesture/body movement:

What kinds of jobs do you have to do at home?
How do you need to stand, bend, sit, or move to do your job?
How will you show where you are working?

Fifth Grade

Observation of large objects:

Where will you paint big and small shapes?
Where will you paint connecting shapes?
Where will you paint overlapping shapes?
What colors will you mix for each part of the object you are painting?

Observation figure painting:

Which parts of the model can you see from your point of view?
Where will you need to paint bending shapes?
How can you show overlapping parts?
What colors will you need to mix for the model's skin and clothes?
Will you paint the space around and behind the model?

Gesture/body movement, composition :

How will you show people moving and bending in a painting?
Will the figures be close together or far apart?
How big will the figures be on your paper ?
What do you need to include to show where the action is taking place?

Gesture/body movement:

What is something you can do now, that you could not do when you were in Kindergarten?
How many figures will be in your painting?
What do you need to include to show where the action is taking place?