For this project students learned about the artist Mark Rothko and his color blocks or color fields. Using oil pastels students experimented with blending several colors to create glowing colors, muted colors and various warm and cool shades. Students began on a black piece of paper then had a second try on a red piece of paper. 

First challenge of project: Create one continuous line that doesn't cross, touch, start in a new spot, go off the paper, it must fill up the page and must end in the exact place it started. Students learned lines such as castle, zig zag, scallop, curvy and wavy to get ideas for line design. The second step once completed was to draw three geometric shapes of choice, outline in black and color one with the three primary colors, one with the three secondary colors, and the last with an opposite pair of their choice. Students who are more design or math inclined latched onto this project quickly! Students learned fine motor skills, vocabulary such as composition and continuous line, and color theory.

Lines Learned: Castle, wavy, curvy, broken, zig zag, loop, polka dots etc. I introduced lines with the book Lines that Wiggle by Candace Whitman, then demonstrating how to draw different lines on the board. The lesson was for students to try as many as the lines they could, and to make sure they went across the entire piece of paper. The next step I introduced warm and cool colors with crayons, their goal was to color in between each line with solid color...not scribbling.