Venn Diagrams

Last year I introduced visual texture to the first graders by looking closely at the book, "Where the Wild Things Are."  I scanned several pages from the book, then cropped in for some extreme close ups.  I showed these to my students on a big screen. They loved guessing which part of the picture they were looking at in the close ups.  Then we talked about each of Sendak's methods for showing textures, like fuzzy carpet, rough wallpaper. Curly hair, scaly legs, feathers, fur, scratched up claws, and everything else.  Then we mimicked his techniques. It was basically an introduction to cross hatching, and some other stuff.

Next I had the kids draw their own "wild things," and try to include multiple types of visual texture.  Last year that was the end of the lesson. This year I took it a little further.

I made two photocopies of each child's drawing. At the start of the next class period I had them color one of their drawings.  They had to use crayons but I asked them to experiment with them and use them in new ways. They pushed hard and soft, tried to mix colors, and basically thought more about what they were doing than usual when they color.

Once they finished these pictures (it only took about five minutes) I gave them each the second copy of their work and let them watercolor.  They were thrilled about this and spent much more time working on the second picture. Also, it felt like magic to them when they got a second copy of the same picture.

At the end of class we compared and contrasted painting with watercolors and coloring with crayons and put our results into a Venn Diagram.  Here are some of their results:

Crayons:  push hard or soft, made of wax

Watercolors: use a paintbrush, colors can run together, use water

Both: use your hands, lots of colors, you can make lines or fill areas in, you can see through the colors, you can make the color light or dark, it's fun