Grade
3
Hungry,
Hungry Whale
(Multimedia
project)
I had fashioned
several characters from various materials: milk cartons, PET bottles,
papier mâché and paper clay that I used as models for various
projects—such as the pink dinosaur on the right. One of these was a
whale that I used as the basis for a multimedia project that included
crayon, poster color, torn construction paper and images from flyers
or magazines that I called the “Hungry, Hungry Whale”.
This was a project for three weeks
from start to finish. The first week was devoted to the base drawing
which consisted of dividing the paper in half to establish the water
zone and the sky zone and painting the whale and water zone. The
papier mâché whale model was already set up before the class. The
students were free to take “artistic license” with the style of
the whale using the model only for proportions and juxtaposition of
parts. Of course, they could faithfully try to reproduce the model if
they were so inclined. My main instructions were to divide the paper
in half with a “wave line” and to draw a large whale with a big
open mouth [as in the drawing on the left].
When the sketch was finished the
students were instructed to outline their drawing with a dark crayon
the color of their choice. They wax crayon functions as a barrier
fence to prevent bleeding and contain the poster color paint within
the desired shape. Once the outline was done I emphasized that they
were to paint only the whale (any color) and the water, leaving the sky area
white [picture on the right]. That was the conclusion of the first days lesson. The drawings
were then put on the drying rack to dry and the painting materials
washed and put away.
Day Two was utilized in tearing old
construction paper remnants (that I kept in a cardboard box from
other projects) into roughly 1 ~ 2 cm. squares of four or five colors
and gluing them around the whale for the sky. I encouraged the
students not to make a slapdash hash of this technique. It takes some
patience and focus to do it right. The idea was to outline fairly
neatly the head and tail of the whale and then continue filling in
the sky leaving some white space around the edges [picture on the left].
I'd-rather-be-running-around-the-playground Hiroshi's tendency was to
tear huge chunks off the construction paper and glue them willy-nilly
as quickly as possible—unable to control his enthusiasm. When I
spotted him doing this I would give him the “teacher look” and
remind him to tear smaller pieces and do some repair work. Results
were, of course, uneven! When the torn paper sky was fully pasted the
work was again put onto the drying rack to dry.
For the third and final day of this
project I instructed the kids to bring illustrated flyers and old
magazines or catalogs, etc., to school. Then I told the students that
this was a very strange and very hungry whale that would eat
anything. The challenge was to find all kinds of pictures, cut them
carefully out of the flyers, mags., etc., and paste them so that they
would appear to be going into the whale's mouth, or, if you, prefer,
throwing up from the whale's mouth. Once the whale's “food” was
done, I told the students to decorate the rest of the picture in a
colorful and playful manner. One final trip to the drying rack and
the project was finished. The results would look something like this
depending on the eye and skill of the particular kid.
 |
| Hungry, Hungry Whale |
But, the very nature of the project was a lot of fun that the kid's could plunge into with great gusto and make an absolute mess of the Art Room floor by the end of the period. They would also “help” clean up with equally great gusto leaving two or three large plastic bags bulging with unused, crumpled and torn flyers, catalogs, etc. Great fun was had by all!
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