4th Grade: Chinese New Year Dragons

4th grade has been having a BLAST the past month working on a project that is full of so many layers.

The process:

Day 1:

Students were all given a large sheet of poster paper.  Select songs of classical music (with strong emotions) was turned on and students had to draw with the music.  They had to select colors that reflected the emotion of the music and draw along to the music.  The students LOVED this.  Most said that they felt relaxed while doing this.  Almost all students couldn't believe how quickly class time flew by.

Day 2:

The next art class students were given back their musical drawings and stations were set up around the art room.  At each station there was a different technique for painting.

-Stamps
-Paint rollers
-Paint scratch tools
-Paint daubers

Students spent time at each station adding layers of paint and texture to their artworks.  By the time students were done, we had quite the variety of artworks.

The painted papers were torn into strips and students arranged them around a background paper.  

The dragon heads were drawn, outlined in oil pastels (variety of colors), and then watercolored.  These were cut out and attached to the backgrounds.  Fire was made using colored tissue paper.  

I think the final results are SPECTACULAR!  What a way to bring in the Chinese New Year!!   Students learned about Chinese New Year and the symbolism of the dragon in the New Year's celebration.  Hopefully these dragons bring good fortune and good luck into your homes for the upcoming New Year.  

This is a great project to ask your child how they created them.  I guarantee you they will be overjoyed to share with you the process.  I would guess that their favorite part was drawing to music.