Unit Overview: Students created haunted houses using chalk pastels to create an artwork that set a spooky mood/tone. Students experimented with chalk pastel as a medium in order to expand artistic knowledge and understanding of materials. Our art room is fortunate enough to have Conte Chalk Pastels in our room. They are super nice and the colors are just amazingly vivid. In the past, working with chalk pastels ends up being an experiment in frustration. But, with the right tools, even fourth graders can make magical and beautiful works of art. Let's talk haunted houses. As a policy, our school doesn't permit students to draw pictures of violence, blood, guts, gore, weaponry, etc. So, how can students make successful haunted houses with the scary stuff? Good question. The answer is: by focusing on the spooky stuff.
For example, a clown with a knife in the kitchen is only scary for a second. But, imagine being home alone. A storm causes the power to go out. There are no candles or light. The sound of a squeaky door comes from the kitchen. Then, tap ... tap ... tap. You peer through the darkness ... you hear a breath by your ear. Now that's scary stuff. And totally school appropriate. (Win!) So how do we apply those kind of scary elements to an artwork? What about drawing a swing on a tree? A random shovel in the middle of the yard? Smoke coming from an abandoned house? A gate left open. Footprints along a dirt path, but no one in sight. That creates the illusion that something is happening ... that someone is there. To me, that's scarier that a clown with a knife. Because maybe the clown with the knife in the kitchen is making a salad. How boring. Then, we used a spooky medium. Chalk pastels. Students experimented first. We used scrap paper to test what happens when we smear the pastels, when we layer the colors. We talked about how to use them gently, because they are nearly impossible to sharpen. We talked about how chalk pastel doesn't erase, so every mark is important. We talked about using a cover paper so we wouldn't smudge our beautiful artwork. We talked about affixing the chalk with hairspray, to keep the picture from getting smudged. Then, we dove in headfirst and drew our entire haunted house using chalk pastel. The results are remarkable.
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