I introduced my Grade 2-3 classes to the illustration work of Barbara Reid (if you do not know who she is, check out this website with some of her work and classroom resources). Together, as a class, we illustrated an Aesop’s fable. For this group, I chose: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. I read the story aloud to them, asked them to retell the details of the story and together we created a storyboard. Each student chose a scene from the story that they wanted to draw. We discussed setting and characters, and how artists use some creative license in adding extra details to a picture, details that may not be mentioned in the text. I showed them a video of Barbara Reid and how she plans out her pictures first on paper. The students created a drawing of their chosen scene and added colour. Next I showed them a video of how Barbara creates a plasticine picture, working first with the background, then moving to middle ground and finally the foreground, before adding characters and final detail and texture. We took a whole class to go over rules for working with plasticine and practiced making shapes with it before starting on our pictures. After finishing their pictures, I introduced them to artist statements. Each student wrote in response to three prompts: 1) describing the scene they chose to illustrate, 2) how they made their picture and the materials and tools they used, and 3) the part of their picture they liked the best and why.
I am really happy with the final results, I think they all had fun too.
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Gateway Art 