Blooming Into Spring

This was the first peer lesson that was taught. The title was Blooming into Spring. We were taught how to create a crayon resist flower. To start the lesson off, the teachers gave us definitions of some of the vocabulary that was to be used that day. They also gave us examples of Gloria O'Keefe's  work, which included beautiful, full displays of flowers that took up, and sometimes went over, the whole canvas. This was to be our inspiration for our project. 

We were instructed to use oil pastel to create a flower that filled a 9x9 piece of paper. We were told to fill the paper as much as possible without being scared to make the flower run off the page. It was also suggested to press hard while using the oil pastels so that when we painted over it, they could still be seen. 

I decided to draw a sunflower because it is my favorite flower. I started out by drawing a large brown circle in the middle. The circle was surrounded by a smaller orange circle. I then drew on the yellow petals and smeared the orange and brown up into them. 

Once we were finished with our drawing, we got some watered down black tempera paint. We had to quickly paint over our flower, following the direction of the petals. When we finished painting we had to use our fingers or a paper towel to rub off most of the paint. We once again had to follow the direction of the petals. We could take off as much or as little as we wanted. 

As an extension activity, this technique could be used after writing letters to someone in the past in a social studies class. Once the letters are written, it would be cool to paint over it to make the letters look old and weathered. You could also be learning about different types of flowers and parts of a flower in science while this project was done.