Studio two reflection

Artist Statement:

The artwork: For this piece of art I used oil pastels in many different colors to represent my family. Painting over top of my oil pastels I used green water color. To make the green water color I mixed the yellow and the blue water colors. Those two primary colors mixed together to create a secondary color of green.

The setting: In the setting of the painting I put my 15lb, black, fuzzy cat Poe. Next to him I put my boyfriend of five years, with brown hair, brown eyes and skinny jeans. Then I put myself, having long brownish black hair, blue eyes and red lipstick, on the far right side. Above us I drew the sun and some clouds. Below us I drew a blanket and some grass that we are sitting on. Behind us are a lot of trees and rolling green hills. In between my boyfriend and I, is not only Poe (the cutest cat ever) but a large brown picnic basket full of delicious foods. All these things come out to create a wonderful drawing of a fantastic picnic with my cat and my boyfriend.

Rational: This is appropriate for second graders because of the content language you have to include into the drawing. In second grade students are relearning/reviewing primary and secondary colors. As well as learning how to create pictures that show their knowledge in things such as depth perception: near and far and how to create those. It also shows if students understand how to represent above, below and beside. Lastly, it gets students to thinking, and representing, members of their families which helps them to draw upon their memories and pick key details from them.

Difficulties: Students may get hung up on trying to perfect their photos and never finish the lesson. You may not be able to tell what is in the photo or if the child understands the content language because of how they drew their photo. Family settings are very different for each student, so trying to figure out what to draw and how to draw it may be very difficult for some students. Changing the directions to maybe drawing what you see when you look out the front room window or what you see when you look out the classroom window may help some students to focus more on the assignment at hand.