Several years ago I came across the tutorial on Art Projects for Kids on drawing nutcrackers. I varied the lesson each time I taught it, but was never happy with the results. I would like the children to personalize their nutcrackers, but they would come out looking like mutant robots. I started adding shading with oil pastels to the mix, then we had these nutcrackers with no background and a mystery light source... or worse, A CORNER SUN!
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| This is my daughter's. It is a mutant robot dancer "nutcracker" floating in the abyss. |
I passed out the directions to my fourth graders, as well as the nutcracker tutorial from above. In the directions, I ask the students to follow the instructions on the tutorial, but before they start drawing too many details I stop them.
I pass out the Nutcracker Brainstorm page next. We talk about how the artists who designed these nutcrackers wanted them to all look unique. Some had occupations, some were royalty, some had beautiful patterns and designs on them (the handout is 2 sided). We talk about ways we can turn our nutcracker into a me-cracker. Which - quite frankly - is hilarious, because the rest of the hour I have kids asking me if their project is a "me-cracker," and I respond with, "yeah, that's a you-cracker!"
When the you-crackers are drawn and traced, and colored with oil pastel, we actually DO draw a corner sun on the right side of our papers. I make a huge deal about it and pretend like I am having a heart attack and my hair is falling out because of all the corner suns, but alas - for our art - I carry on! I tell them about the corner sun being the light source and how we are going to add shadow to the other side/left of our nutcrackers.
I demonstrate how to smear their oil pastels, and we talk about which parts, cracks, and crevices might have a shadow and which might not.
Once their is a shadow, there may be a glare. The nutcrackers are probably wood and lacquer so they might have a shiny spot! We add that with our white.
Here is the genius part of this whole lesson. I printed photographs of burning candles on 11 x 17" paper. I just downloaded some stuff I found on the web, and printed on the Xerox machine in black and white. Now, these are Christmassy, and the one is an advent wreath (I teach in a Catholic School 2 days). I printed 6 of each and let the students choose which one they wanted.
Finally, students cut & paste, and we had our finished product. I was so pleased to have finished looking nutcrackers for once!
Finally, students completed the Rubric for this project. See the rest of the class at Artsonia.com
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