Lines and Shape

Now that the craziness of the first few weeks of class are over, we can have some real fun, and might accidentally learn something in the process! This week we played with line and shape in simple graphic forms to create an abstract painting. We also learned some important terms, like “line”, “shape”, “graphic”, “abstract” and “waffle fries”. Fortunately we have all year to practice.

Follow Along

First, we started with cookie cutters to trace overlapping shapes with pencil. It sounds easy but it was trickier than you’d expect. Even I struggled a little, especially when I found some leftover cookie dough on one of the cutters.

Then we traced the pencil lines with black marker, which is excellent training for those fine motor skills.

I don’t like to impose a lot of rules for our art projects or “cookie-cutter” art (pun intended), but there were some skills I wanted the kids to think about. I encouraged them to consider filling the page, allowing their shapes to extend beyond the page and making the shapes overlap. I should have told them not to extend their drawing to the desks. That comes out, right?

Lastly, we got to coloring. I had the younger students try their skills at coloring with marker. The older kids had the freedom to test watercolors if they wanted, and I challenged all of them to not let the same color to touch adjacent shapes (my husband does the same thing with food). We also discussed color schemes such as warm versus cool colors and football team color palettes.

The Results