Monochromatic Designs with printmaking

While I was teaching I had to introduce the element of design, PATTERN. Pattern is not always an easy concept to teach to young children. It requires an understanding of repetition. There are simple patterns where you work with one color and two shapes or two colors and one shape. These are called A B patterns. When working with small children, it is best to keep it simple. One of my favorite lessons when I was teaching was set up in two parts. The first part was a monochromatic painting of a shape. The students chose one color of paint and some white and black paint for mixing tints and shades. The main focus of this part of the lesson was to get them to understand that white added to a color made it lighter (tint) and black added to a color made it darker (shade).

The students painted a simple shape like a circle or square on to a large piece of paper with their color. They then added white to their paintbrushes and painted around that shape creating a shadow image. The students either added white or black to their paintbrushes until they had painted around the shape right up to the edges of the paper. The papers were left to dry until the next class.

Step two: Here's where the printmaking comes into the artwork. Students were given white, gold, silver and black tempera paint and small pieces of cardboard (cut from a discarded packing box), sponges and empty thread spools. (the plastic ones have a wonderful wagon wheel image.)
Students were then directed to use these tools to create patterns in the shapes that they had painted. The one included here is that of a five year-old who left her work behind.

One of these monochromatic pattern designs is part of the permanent collection of student artwork of the Westbrook, Maine School Department. Many parents chose to have these images framed to hang in their home or offices. Image my surprise when, about two years ago, I went into my bank manager's office and saw two of these images hanging in her office. One had been done by her oldest daughter, now a high school graduate, and the other had been done by her middle daughter, now in third grade. Both girls had created their work in one of my kindergarten art classes . The mother said that she loved the modern appearance these art works gave to her office. I, on the other hand, was thrilled to see that someone appreciated the beauty of the artwork that young children can produce.

If you are a teacher or a home school parent and would like a full copy of the lesson plan and its expected outcomes in relationship to learning standards, please send me a request in the comment area with your e-mail address and I will send it to you.