Friday, October 28, 2011

Alex Beard & Monkey See, Monkey Draw

My second graders looked at some artwork by Alex Beard, who is on display in my room along with M.C. Escher, as many of his paintings are sort of tessellations. We read his book Monkey See, Monkey Draw. We did an activity often done by Alex Beard when he works with kids, which is a simple lesson relating to the story. The children traced their hand, and then had to turn it into "something". The only rule: NO TURKEYS.
Michael made this adorable deer.
Thomas is still working to finish coloring his awesome dragon.
Peyton made this great tiger -hmmm it seems to have 5 legs. At least I hope they are all legs...

Some kids made dinosaurs, flowers, trees, and more, but MANY of them, perhaps inspired by Alex Beard's peacock image hanging on my bulletin board, decided to make peacocks.

As a result, I decided we needed to paint some peacocks. We watched a great video of a peacock showing off his feathers, and examined some real peacock feathers close up. We have now begun drawing peacocks for a shimmery painting, with sparkly crayons for resist.

1 comment:

  1. Peacocks! Love the motivation for the peacocks. I've bought a bunch of peacock feathers but can't find the motivation to do a peacock lesson. By motivation I mean book, artwork or reason:) I can't wait to see the results and maybe the video link??? Please? If it's possible of course.
    I wonder if you have power? We've been pit for days and still no ones working on our power lines and poles... So it might be a few more days! It's been three and a half. No school.
    Love the dragon and the hand motivation:)

    ReplyDelete

Due to spam/phishing overload, comments are no longer being accepted on this blog. You can find There's a Dragon in my Art Room on Instagram if you wish to react to this blog or contact me.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.