Making a Monster

Kindergarten Lesson

Students will create a colorful monster with oil pastels and watercolors. The piece will have an emphasis on color, texture, and pattern. These compositions will all allow students to create renderings of a character from their imagination. Students will read Life Doesn’t Frighten Me at All by Maya Angelou with illustrations by Basquiat. They will learn about warm and cool colors, and texture and pattern. Students will also learn about how to care for art materials and clean up. There will also be an emphasis on developing fine motor skills. Students will read and speak about art connecting to English Language Arts.

Objectives

Create a monster using stencil outlines and oil pastel (Cr)
Incorporate color theory by doing a watercolor wash in the opposite color scheme (Cool Vs Warm) (Cr)
Explain their monster and what fears they might have. (Re, Cn)
Explore Model Magic and how 3D shapes are created vs 2D shapes (Cr)

Resources

Steps:

Students will read along with the book "Life Doesn't Frighten Me at All" by Maya Angelou. They will be able to describe the illustrations (by Basquiat) and pick out features they notice. They will connect the text with their own lives and fears they may have.

Intro to Basquiat

Oil Pastel Drawing

Students will trace stencils for their monster head and body, then add elements to the face before adding parts of the body (legs, tails, feet, claws, wings). They will know they're done when they have a monster with a body, head, face, and at least three details.

Students will add watercolor to their oil pastel drawings, being able to color their monster and add texture. They will learn about warm and cool colors, since their watercolors will be the opposite scheme to the pastels.

Oil Pastel Drawing

Students can have an additional two lessons. One class period is devoted to naming their monster picture and circling monster elements they included in their drawing. The later half of class is left open for students to create a 3-D monster using Model Magic to experiment with dimensional forms.

The second lesson, students will be able to paint the forms with a mix of neon tempera cakes. They'll be able to take both monsters home.

Model Magic