Friday, April 5, 2013

Floating jellyfish - grade 5/6


Here it is - my monthly new favorite project. Every month or so, I seem to declare a new project my favorite (see: here and here, and several other times I've said this.) But really, this one is special. In November, one of my students did a project on jellyfish, and I've just had it in my head that that would be a neat thing to do for an art project. Even more recently, someone pinned a photo of a jellyfish, and it jogged my memory.

Coming up with this project was pretty simple - I googled images of jellyfish, figured out how to draw them (very simple - start with the bubble shape at the top, add the tentacles, then behind the tentacles draw the line that represents the other side of the jellyfish.)

Students first drew in pencil, then traced in Sharpie (some thin, some thick.) Then, they used the same stippling technique that we used for our elephants and hot air balloons project. I encouraged students to use a mix of blues, soft purples, and blacks to create their background. Next, they moved onto their jellyfish, where they used greys and purples to create a shaded effect that made their jellyfish look rounded. The last thing they did was color in the tentacles using black Sharpie.









I think they are absolutely fabulous!! I even hung up my example in my hallway at home:


3 comments:

  1. Hi! I found your site through the google adsense forum. It looks like you had the same issue I've been having--getting rejected for no reason from Adsense. However, it looks like you got onto the adsense program since the last time you posted in the forum. May I ask how? Did you apply for the domain directly though adsense, or did you go through blogger? Love the jellyfishes, by the way!!

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  2. I'm the Editorial Assistant for Fun Family Crafts and I wanted to let you know that we have featured your jellyfish! You can see it here:

    http://funfamilycrafts.com/jellyfish-art/

    If you have other kid-friendly crafts, we'd love it if you would submit them. If you would like to display a featured button on your site, you can grab one from the right side bar of your post above. Thanks for a wonderful project idea!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello! I love this project and would like to try it out with my class. The backgrounds are amazing but I feel that I need a little more help. What actually is 'stippling' and how do you get this effect? A quick google tells me it's like pointillism, but the effect you've achieved in this looks much softer. Thanks for any advice.

    ReplyDelete

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