4 Medium Challenge

Grade 4 students have been exploring many different meduims used to create art. Today, they were challenged to create a piece of art using at least 3 different mediums. They were asked to complete an observational drawing and explain why they chose each medium.

Here are a few of the amazing artworks! 

Salt on water colour paint created a bumpy texture for the basket ball!

This students used oil pastel for the leaves and chose water colour paint for the background to create shadows -and because it was easy to paint around the many edges! 

Permanent marker was used to draw the container. Water colour pencils helped to create highlights and shadows. 

Our Salt and Ice Colour Wheel

Grade 4 students were asked the question,

What will change when we put salt on ice?

We looked at one piece of ice without salt and another with salt.  

This is what we found: 

• We heard a cracking sound. 
• The salt digs tunnels into the ice. 
• The salt dissolves. 
• The salt makes holes in the ice. 

Next we added colour so that we could see what was happening more clearly: 

• We made secondary colours!
• We made black when all of the colours mixed. 

Going Bananas

More Chemical Reactions in Grade 4!

Here GWA artists created art on bananas by poking holes with a pin, (much like a tatoo artist does!) After a moment the mark began to oxidize! 

Chemical Reactions: Using Salt to Create Texture.

Students explored what happens when you add salt to wet watercolor paint. This lesson addresses the art element of texture using the science of chemical reaction.

We looked at Van Gogh's art work, especially Starry Night, for inspiration. Students were encouraged to create a book mark, inspired by Van Gogh using oil pastel and watercolour paint. They then sprinkled salt on the wet paint. 

We looked at the interactive version of Starry Night on the white board. They also explored the apps: 

Starry Night Interactive

Van Gogh Interactive

Observations:

The salt can create movement in your art!
-Huthaifa

The salt creates texture
-Quinten

We are using SCIENCE to create ART!
-4BA

Exploring Mediums

Grade 4 students are exploring the question, "How does the medium we choose affect our final art work?". We tried making marks with many different kinds of mediums: oil pastels, markers, sharpies, water colour pencils and colouring pencils.

Some reflections:

• Pencils are better for making detailed pictures! -Alex
• Oil pastels are better for colouring in things quickly. -Teja
• Oil pastels create different textures! -Nishka
• Oil pastels can be blended. Paint cant. -Dylan
• It's easier to draw details with colouring pencils and permanent markers. -Quinten & Maria
• Markers give you more control. -Sirine
• Permanent markers were darker than the normal markers. -Amelie
• Oil pastels can give dark marks or light marks -Vazir

Next students added water on top of the marks to see what happened. They made a guess about what they thought would happen first.

• The markers almost disappeared. -Romy
• The water colour pencils blended into the water. 
• The permanent markers didn't change! - 
• I thought that the water pencils would not blend with the water. -Injoon and lots of other people!