This is a wonderful winter project for elementary students, in this case, grade 4.
We started by sketching a bear on a piece of cardboard, I handed photos and drawings of different types and styles of bears, so they could choose something of their liking. They were then asked to enlarge and sketch in the cardboard “as big as the paper is”, so the top of the sketch needed to reach the top of the paper and so on. This is quite challenging for young students, but is a great sketching exercise. I always remind to them to sketch lightly, we should be able to erase “without seeing a trace” and to identify basic shapes inside our object. Draw those basic shapes first, then add details until your sketch resembles your object. Once the sketch was completed, they painted it roughly (uneven strokes will add texture) with brown tempera and immediately outlined it with black paint. We then prepared the background, using a black piece of cardboard and white acrylic paint. Students painted a ground level covered with snow and added snowflakes, dots and/or a moon. Once both papers were dry, they cut out the bear and glued it up on the black cardboard. I asked them to play with it a bit before deciding where would it look good, so it move around before you decide for the right spot! Add more snow with white tempera once you glued up, just make sure there are no parts left popping up, it should look as ONE piece of paper, for this particular project I handed toothbrushes and a Popsicle stick. Dip in paint then splash a “storm”. Make sure you model the right direction, they instinctively slide the stick from up down, and that splashes paint straight to the face!
Enjoy it!
1st Class Art 