Submitted by Patti Caiola, Reynolds
Elementary School in Toledo, OH
UNIT: Animals in Art - Social Studies/Science Integration - Drawing/Painting
Grade Level: Elementary
Lesson:
Toco Toucan - Oil Pastels
Grade Level:
4th Grade
Click for larger images
Time
Needed:
Three class periods (1
hour each)
Ohio
Fine Arts Standard Applied:
Creative
Expression and Communication
Benchmark A:
Demonstrate knowledge of visual art materials, tools, techniques and
processes by using them
expressively and skillfully.
Description: Students will create a picture of a Toucan from
the continent of South America using pencil, marker, and oil pastels.
Materials:
12 x 18
white paper (maybe try on yellow paper - or black paper with glue outline
Black fine point markers
Eraser - Pencils
Oil Pastels
Sax
Multimedia Varnish (to make shiny and protect smearing) - brushes
Preparation:
Class example completed, photos of Toucans, Fruit Loops box for
Toucan Sam compare/contrast, Zoo Books about Toucans.
Vocabulary:
Continent: South
American, Toco Toucan, repetition, balance, proportion.
References:
- Webshots
photo online http://www.webshots.com/g/25/535-sh/16488.html.
- The
San Diego Zoo Animal Bytes helped with Rainforest information online
at http://www.sandiegozoo.com/animalbytes/index.html
- National
Geographic Xpeditions Maps online at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/expeditions/atlas/
- Sea
World Animal Bytes online
Artist/Period/Cross
Curriculum:
World continents – Social Studies, environment/conservation -
rainforest,
Procedure:
Day
One:
- Begin
by having students identify the continent of South America.
Discuss the Toco Toucan and it’s characteristics with the
students.
- Emphasize
that we will begin our Toucan by lightly sketching some basic shapes
that will eventually be erased. Circle
for the eye, circle for the head, oval for the body, upside down
rainbow arch for the white chest of the toucan.
The beak is shaped like a large leaf with a point on the very
end. A zigzag line
separates the top beak from the bottom; the top beak is wider than the
bottom.
- The
background of the design should repeat the pattern of the beak with
either long smooth leaves with points on the ends, or zigzag edged
leaves. Discuss the
principle of repetition with the students.
- Students
may add berries or flowers around their leaves. Again, discuss the effectiveness of repeating shapes in
the overall design. The
blue circle that is around the Toucan’s eye would be a great shape
and color to repeat in creating the center of your flowers or berries.
This helps to create balance in their composition.
- Using
the fine point black markers, students will trace their entire pencil
design.
Day
Two:
- Begin
by reviewing vocabulary from last class with students:
South America, continent, Toucan, repetition and balance.
- Using
oil pastels and observing photos of real toucans, students will blend
colors to create their toucans. The
background of the toucans should be various shades and blends of
green, yellow-green, dark green, etc.
Day
Three:
- Review
the vocabulary from the lesson with students.
- Complete
the oil pastel coloring. Make
sure the white oil pastel is completely cleaned off with a paper towel
before starting the Toucan’s white chest to avoid smearing.
- After
toucan is complete, with a small paintbrush and Sax Multimedia varnish
students will paint over their entire toucan with a thin clear coat.
Set on drying rack until completely dry.
4th
Grade Toco Toucan- Note from Patti: My inspiration was a photo
of a Toco Toucan that I found on Webshots. I decided to do a lesson
on this South American animal and tie it into the 4th Graders Social
Studies curriculum. I used an image from Webshots.com, my laptop,
and a projector to show a large Toucan photo for constant reference
throughout the lesson: http://www.webshots.com/g/25/535-sh/16488.html.
If the link does not work, go to www.webshots.com
and search for Toco Toucan, the first photo displayed is the one I used
for inspiration for this lesson.
Lesson:
Asian Tiger Watercolor
Grade Level:
6th
Time
Needed:
Three class periods (1 hour each)
Description:
Students will discuss the different characteristics of
wild jungle cats like lions, tigers, and leopards.
They will use their observations to create their own painting of a
jungle cat.
| Materials:
12
x 18 white paper, heavy
Watercolor paints
Paint brushes (small and medium)
Erasers - Pencils
Paper Toweling
Small sponges |
 |
Preparation:
Class
example completed, photos of animal to be drawn, facts about that
animal’s habitat, diet, and environment (science). Is the animal endangered?
Vocabulary:
Cat, environment, habitat, jungle, diet, food chain, continent,
country.
References:
Lesson adapted from Liz
Lumbreezer.
Magazine photos, National Geographic, books, posters, etc, a map of
the world or a globe to illustrate where the chosen cat is from.
- Webshots
photos online, search for Tigers www.webshots.com
- The
San Diego Zoo Animal Bytes helped with Rainforest information online
at http://www.sandiegozoo.com/animalbytes/index.html
- National
Geographic Xpeditions Maps online at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/expeditions/atlas/
Artist/Period:
ź
Henri Rousseau was a
self-taught artist who often painted images of jungle scenes and animals.
His work was bright and colorful and he is best known for his
Sleeping Gypsy painting of 1897.
ź
Eugene Delacroix painted a
watercolor of a Tiger lying down (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC).
ź
Peter Paul Reubens has very
detailed drawings of lions in Daniel in the Lions Den, National
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)
Objectives:
Students will be able to…
- Construct
a pencil drawing of a lion, tiger, or leopard.
- Recognize
the country/continent of a lion, tiger or leopard.
- Paint
their lion, tiger or leopard by mixing their own green and brown
paints.
Procedure:
Day
One:
- Begin
by discussing the jungle cat of the day.
Discuss the cat’s environment, country, continent, diet,
lifestyle, etc. Discuss
the cat while passing around graphic images of the Jungle animals.
- With
the paper horizontal, start by creating a rounded rectangle lightly
in the middle of the paper. Teacher
will create the example on the board along with the students, step by
step.
- At
the top right corner of the rounded rectangle, create the long tail
for the cat.
- Create
the front two legs by making 3 straight lines down beginning at the
far left corner of the rounded rectangle.
(Front leg comes down from chest).
Connect the bottom of the front legs by drawing paws at the
bottom. (Use a lowercase
letter “c” for a paw shape)
- Create
the two back legs by creating an arrow shape (>) that begins just
above the bottom right side corner of the rounded rectangle and
continues to the ground. Repeat
this shape two times; add paws to the bottom of each leg.
- To
create the neck, begin with a horizontal line that begins from the
center of the cat’s back and gradually goes up and to the left.
Start the other half of the neck/chest from the bottom left
corner of the rectangle and gradually goes up and to the left.
- The
head should be an oval at the end of the neck opening from step 7.
- Begin
the face with a triangle for the nose, line down from the nose to
create the lips, cheek and chin.
Draw two straight lines up and out from the corner of the cat
nose to create the eyebrow bones.
The eyes should be two circles touching the outsides of the
eyebrow bone lines. Add
ears, one above each eye.
- Erase
all 4 rounded corners of the rectangle to complete basic cat drawing.
- Tiger
– add leaf shaped stripes, Leopard – add spots, Lion male – add
mane and tuft of hair to end of tail, Lion female – add tuft of hair
to end of tail.
- Add
horizon line above the paws, but below the belly.
Day
Two:
Procedure continues using the Tiger as the example.
- Beginning
with the orange watercolor paint, students will paint the entire tiger
orange. Paint right over
the pencil drawing of the stripes.
(Painting around each stripe uses much class time)
Leave the eyes and the nose white!
- Carefully
mix yellow and turquoise to create green watercolor paint.
Paint the entire background green.
Note: As students
continue to mix their green they will create subtle different shades
of green. This adds to
the realism of the background and should be encouraged
- By
mixing the orange and the green paint together, students will create
brown paint. Use this
paint to complete the ground.
- When
finished, students will wash their paintbrushes in their water cup.
Students will wash their hands and area with the soap and water
spray and the small sponges. Teacher
will set paintings aside to dry.
One student will clean out all watercolor paints, another will
rinse out all brushes. Teacher
will collect dirty sponges at end of class.
Day
Three:
- Using
the small paintbrush and a small amount of water, students will
carefully paint in their black stripes and black lines to indicate a
background (leaves, trees, branches).
- After
stripes are completed, students may choose any color to paint the
tiger’s eyes and nose.
Teacher
will collect wet paintings to dry.
Asian
Tiger Watercolor - Note from Patti:
Since I was doing one animal from South America (the Toucan) I
thought that I could have other classes visit different continents.
Therefore, my 6th Graders did Asian Tigers.
The photos can also be seen on my webshots site that I am trying
out at http://community.webshots.com/user/patti774
. I used the photo from webshots
of real tigers on my laptop, projected on the screen, as the entire class
was able to see that as visual reference as I was drawing on the board.
This was the
closest thing
we could get to drawing from life without being able to go to the zoo.
Resources:
Contemporary
wildlife artists Scott Davis http://www.daviswildlife.com/gallery.html
The
resource used for all printable maps to use for both presentation and
student displays: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/expeditions/atlas/
Animals
from Many Continents:
North American Grizzly Bear
Grade
Level:
2nd Grade
Time
Needed:
One class period (1 hour)
Description:
Students will create a picture of a Grizzly Bear from the continent
of North America. Drawing
from photograph references using pencil, marker, and crayons students will
use simple shapes to create the portrait of a grizzly bear.
Upside down heart for muzzle, ovals, circles, capitol letter
“v”, etc. Students learn
to take a complex photo and break it down into simple shapes…anyone can
draw anything if you just break it down into simple shapes!
Draw large shapes first, add details second, outline with sharpie
third, color with multicultural crayons last.
Could be painted, oil pastels, cut paper, many adaptations
possible. Great tie in with geography, and the environment/habitat of the
North American Grizzly Bear.
References:
www.webshots.com photo: “Grin and
Bear It” © Mark Newman – Alaska Stock photo, www.webshots.com
photo: “Koala” © SuperStock.Inc , old calanders, old National
Geographics, www.sandiegozoo.com
Animals
from Many Continents:
Australian Koala Bear
Grade
Level:
3rd Grade
Time
Needed:
One class period (1 hour)
Description:
Almost exactly the same as the Grizzly Bear lesson above, but with
the Koala Bear. We discuss
that the Koala is actially a marsupial and not a bear, that it is a
vegetarian and eats eucaliptus leaves, sleeps 22 hours a day, lives mostly
in trees. We used oil pastels
for our project, but again you could adapt it to any media.
Stress again here is on drawing from life, breaking down what the
students see as “hard to draw” into simple shapes that are put
together to form a portrait.
Beginning drawing skills here, forcing them to look at the world a
little differently.
in progress drawing
Animals
from Many Continents:
African Giraffe
I
adapted the Giraffe lesson for my African animal from the Artsonia
website, lesson is available on Artsonia. We used pencils to draw, sharpies to outline,
multicultural crayons to color. Again, could be easily adapted to
watercolor, painting, cut paper, pastels, etc. I used photos from
webshots, agian. The one specifically was titled "Ready For My
Close-Up" © Diana Levey Weaver/Roma. Webshots has been a great
place to get good graphic photos for my students. I can use the
projector at school and project them up on a wall so the whole class
can see the same picture.
Title:
Giraffe Drawing
by Sandi Smith (submitted Jan 31, 2004)
Southside Elementary School - IN, United States
for grade level » Elementary
Giraffe
Information:
The
giraffe is the tallest land animal. Can you draw a person next to the
giraffe? Use the scale next to the giraffe when you draw, and you'll see
how tall a giraffe is when compared to a person.
Anatomy:
The
giraffe is up to 19 feet (6 m) tall and weighs up to 2,800 pounds (1270
kg). A baby
giraffe (called a calf) weighs about 130 pounds at birth and is about
6 feet tall.
Even
though the giraffe's neck is extremely long, it has only seven neck
vertebrae, the same number that people and most other mammals have. The
front legs are slightly longer than the rear legs. Different giraffe
sub-species have different patterns, but most have brown polygons on a
cream/tan background. The polygons are larger on the body and smaller on
the face and limbs and act as camouflage among the trees. Giraffes have
two short horns; males have knobbed, hairless horns, females have thinner,
tufted horns.
Protection
from Predators:
These herding mammals can see their enemies (like lions) from long
distances. Giraffes can run up to 35 mph (56 kph) for short bursts.
Diet:
Giraffes are plant-eaters, eating mostly leaves, twigs and bark from the
tops of the thorny acacia plant. The giraffes carefully eat around the
thorns, and their tough lips and thick saliva protect them somewhat from
the thorns.
Water:
Giraffes can go for days without water. In order to drink water, the
giraffe has to spread its front legs and bend its long neck to the water.
This is a dangerous position for the giraffe since it can't see its
enemies and can't get a fast start running.
Habitat:
Giraffes live in African
grasslands (savannas).
(Note:
information from Enchanted Learning is copyrighted and will be removed if
requested to do so).
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