Background and Horizon Line

Students learned where a horizon line in a picture/landscape falls. (Where the sky and the ground meet are the words I used to describe horizon line) students looked at various landscapes and we discussed how objects in the background of a picture get smaller because they are far away, behind another object or in the back of the picture. 

Students drew a horizon line on their paper and painted by practicing the correct way to hold a paintbrush and take care of the brush by noticing when it started to get dry and needing a "drink" of paint. 

Cave Art

Students had to crawl through a cave (created by me with lots of brown roll paper, a table and lots of staples and tape) to enter the art room. Once students gathered on the learning carpet, I introduced Lascaux Cave and we discussed the pictures in the cave. We talked about symbols and how they were used 40,000 years ago and how we still use symbols today. We talked about weather, sports, animal, etc. symbols. Students also watched a virtual tour of the cave on the smart board.

Students used chalk pastel to make their cave on paper. They used their hand to blend colors and then drew a weather symbol and animal symbol with oil pastel. They finished by painting their hand and making a handprint symbol to represent them as an artist. 

Our district's superintendent, Dr. Kist-Kline made a visit and crawled through the cave along with talking to students and taking pictures.