((To see last year's post of this project, click here.))

One of our cross divisional Arts team two year goals is to have every grade level from K-12 create some sort of a collaborative visual arts project.  I haven't done this quite yet with every grade yet, but am excited about this abstract collaborative project done for the second year with 2nd grade.

We looked at images of Kandinsky's artwork and together as a team, students spent four class periods creating these large abstract paintings.  For more information about the process, click the link above.

To learn about tints, shades, and complementary colors, 4th grade students created colorful radial paintings.

When the students came into class, I had written on the board:

Tint=___________________+_____________________
Shade=_________________+_____________________
Complementary colors=_______________________________________

We discussed how these different words are used in conversation.  Shades are another word for sunglasses.  Shade is the area that is hidden from the sun and is in shadows.  A 'compliment' is when you tell someone you like something about them.  Tint is a word used when windows are darkened (unfortunately this is misleading).

In art terms, a Tint is a color plus white.
A Shade is a color plus black.
Complementary colors are those opposite of each other on the color wheel.  For instance,  orange and blue are complements, red and green are complements, and yellow and purple are complements.

Students each began by doing a complementary colors.  They chose the two complements they wanted to use and began by painting one color dot on their page.  Next they added just a teeny tiny bit of the complementary color to that color, mixed it well, then painted a thin ring around the dot.  Next, again, they added a teeny tiny bit of the complementary color, mixed it well, then painted a ring around the first.  Students continued this until they filled up the entire sheet of paper.  

The next class students did the same technique with tints and shades.  For the tints, students started with a white dot in the center and slowly added a color to it.  For the shade, students began with a color dot in the middle and slowly added black.

To finish up this project, students each selected their two (of the three) favorite paintings and glued them down on black paper together.  While they were doing this, I heard multiple students saying things such as "My mom is going to love this" and "These turned out so pretty" and other joyful exclamations!

I was exploring the wonderful world of Pinterest a while ago and came across this awesome blog post smART class: Hip Hop Kandinsky murals and was super excited about the project.  I took direct inspiration from this super fun project.  I decided to take it into my own hands and do a similar project with my 2nd graders.

 After looking at and discussing the artwork by Kandinsky, 2nd grade students were paired up or put into groups of three to create a painting together.  The students had to really focus on collaboration and working as a team.  Each time we began with a new color, they had to talk to each other about a few places to paint with that color.  We also talked about being accepting of the others' choices with painting even if it might not be the same as theirs.  Every five minutes or so, I had them rotate the paper (poster board) so that they were constantly looking at it from different angles and painting along their partners painting.
The students said they had never did art with another person before and loved it.

The students started on white paper and began painting with black lines. We talked about what abstract means and to draw lines, shapes, and designs rather than things like cats, houses, and trees.
After using the black, students in one class added red, yellow, and blue. The other class used red, yellow and purple.  This was mostly so that the two classes artwork was slightly different.

We spent three 45 minute class periods working on these.  Once finished, I put them all together and the students discussed what they found interesting and fun about this project.  

"It's neat how we all had to follow the same directions, but they all turned out really different."

"When they are all next to each other, they look like one big giant painting instead of a bunch of small paintings."