Cats on a Fence

This fun middle school cats project uses the elements of color theory and line and texture featuring adorable cats on a fence. This project covers Common Core Standards for Math for grade 6 which can be found at the end of the lesson.

Grade Level

4th, 5th, 6th – The examples in this lesson are by 6th graders

Objective  

Students will create a scene of cats sitting on a color theory inspired fence.

Time 

3 – 60 min lessons

Materials 

• Pencils
• Rulers
• 9×12 Watercolor paper – Canson (100510941) XL Series Watercolor Pad, 9″ x 12″, Fold-Over Cover, 30 Sheets
• Brushes – Acrylic Paint Brush Set, 1 Packs / 10 pcs Nylon Hair Brushes for All Purpose Oil Watercolor Painting Artist Professional Kits
• Liquid Water Colors – Sargent Art 22-6010 10-Count 8-Ounce Watercolor Magic Set
  • Or this mini version for homeschooling – Sargent Art 22-6210 10-Count 4-Ounce Watercolor Magic
• Kleenex for blotting paint
• Black Sharpie Marker – Sharpie Permanent Marker, Fine Point, Black, Pack of 5

Inspiration/Artist 

I was inspired to make this project from this site: Click Here

Instruction with Questions

Day 1

Show a couple of videos.  I like all of these, but depending on what background they have about color theory, you may only need a couple of them.  After watching them, have a discussion reviewing what they learned.

Youtube: The Colors Song | The Colours Song | Scratch Garden: Click Here

Beginning Graphic Design: Color: Click Here

Elements of Art: Color | KQED Arts: Click Here

Brain Games – Visible Spectrum: Click Here

Use this Color Theory for kids inspired by Disney PowerPoint Presentation: Click Here

Another idea is to use this color wheel and have them color in the areas with the appropriate color.  Click Here for the PDF

An alternate plan would be to have students cut up magazines to find colors for each area of the template.

Day 2 and 3

Use the lesson found on Arteascuola’s site. I did a few different steps with mine.

I used 9×12 sized watercolor paper. Students make their fence lines one inch apart. I used crayons for the neutral colors of the cats, because I think this makes them look furrier. I also used watercolor paints and had the students layer the watercolor to create the tertiary colors. The pencil lines for the fence design works great! Salt was used to create the star effect while the watercolor paint was still wet.

Here are some finished pieces!

Common Core Standards

6th Grade – Math – Geometry

Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume.

1. Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
2. Find the volume of a right rectangular prism with fractional edge lengths by packing it with unit cubes of the appropriate
   unit fraction edge lengths, and show that the volume is the same as would be found by multiplying the edge lengths of the prism.
3. Draw polygons in the coordinate plane given coordinates for the vertices; use coordinates to find the length of a side joining
   points with the same first coordinate or the same second coordinate. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.
4. Represent three-dimensional figures using nets made up of rectangles and triangles, and use the nets to find the surface area of these figures. Apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.