Pre-Kindergarten students just completed an underwater scene with watercolor paints and markers, based on the illustrations in the book, "The Rainbow Fish," by Marcus Pfister. In this story, we read about a beautiful fish who learned the way to true happiness only after sharing his special scales with the other fish in the sea. What activities do you do at home that is more fun when you share them with your friends? Doesn't it feel good when you make someone you care about feel special too?
Here is a video of the story we read together in class to share with your family...
To create our paintings, we first learned how to draw a fish using basic shapes, such as a circle and a triangle. We also learned how to add scales inside the fish and how to complete a full underwater scene with an ocean bottom, plants, starfish, crabs and bubbles in the water.
Next, we created the ocean with a large brush, lots of water and blue watercolor paint. With markers, we colored each detail in the scene. Finally, when all the scenes were complete, we shared a sparkling sticker with every fish and friend in class!
Maurits Cornelis Escher, best known to us as M.C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. His woodcut, called "Sky and Water," from 1938, is typical of Escher's work. It plays around with the positive and negative spaces in the print, tricking us to focus on just the birds in the sky and not realizing that the white spaces between the birds actually create the fish in the water. In mathematical terms, his artwork is often called a tessellation, a repetition of tiles that fit together like a puzzle.
Fifth graders worked on original illusions with one image that tessellates together with another image in a creative way. This project was difficult for us to do and definitely called on our creative thinking skills. It is hard enough to solve a problem, even harder to come up with our own puzzle for everyone else to solve! The main idea behind our puzzles is to be able to see an image two different ways. With Alex's clever illusion above, she successfully makes us see both a horse and a letter "A".
Illusion by Leo
The face of the cat is actually a mouse. The ears of the mouse form the eyes of the cat, really making you take a second look!
Illusion by Gabrielle M.
The blending of color for Gabby's unicorn's hair is absolutely beautiful. It is reminiscent of the illuminated manuscripts of the Medieval times. In manuscripts such as, "The Book of Kells," letters of the alphabet were often decorated in this way and the shapes symbolic of an animal.
Illusion by Parson
Well known for his intricate line drawings, Parson created a side view of a lady's face. Look closely . . . the nose and eye of the face is a dog!
Illusion by Jason
This clever illusion has two squirrels tessellating around an acorn. Notice how perfectly just two colors work together to complete Jason's image.
Illusion by Starlette
Look carefully again . . . do you see the word tree in the beautifully drawn limbs of the tree? Very clever, Starlette!
