Watercolor shape family project

Grade: First grade
Purpose: Placing subjects in relation to each other to create a main idea. (In between, below, above, behind, etc.)
Learning targets: (1) Student identifies and shows a main idea in a work of art. (2) Identifies location in a composition. (3) Creates an oil pastel resist with secondary color.

The family art project was a fun one for me since I enjoy sharing details about my family, even if it is just to represent them with shape. Each member can be easily identified by their hair since each member of my family has unique hair color and styles. My daughter has curly dark brown hair, my husband has hair only on the sides of his head, I have blonde crazy hair, my oldest son has brown hair that is fixed to a point on his head and my youngest has curly light brown hair.

The scene is Arizona, where my daughter lives. We love to visit her on vacations and flying has become a favorite activity for the family.

In this project, I used oil pastels to draw the members of my family with just shapes and did not fill it in with color. I mixed red and yellow to get a pale orange color which I used it as a wash on the entire picture.

I positioned the subjects between two cacti and below a sunny sky. There are clouds above my family but it looks like my husband, who is very tall, has his head between the two clouds.

The learning standards included with this assignment are:

Visual Art
Elements: Color and space
Skills and techniques: Uses a variety of tools to explore ways of making lines and textures.

Common Core ELA
With guidance and support from adults, recall information rom experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Describe people, places, things and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and felings clearly.

Children with poor fine motor skills or students with physical disabilities may have difficulty completing this assignment without assistance or modification.

Teachers must be sensitive to the possibility of a student with an unusual family make up or negative home life and be prepared to assist and support.