In the Art Room: Printed Paris

Goin' out with a bang! We are slowly wrapping up our unit on Paris, France and what better way to say goodbye than with fireworks.

As my third grade students were finishing up these printed and chalked Parisian pictures, I was so impressed, I thought I'd share them with you. They were mighty proud of them too which lead to the following back and forth:

Kids: Can we PLEASE take these home today?

Evil Art Teacher: No! I must keep all of these masterpieces for the end-of-the-school-year art show!

OTL Kid [OTL = Out To Lunch]: When's the end-of-the-school-year art show?

EAT: The end-of-the-school-year art show is next week. 

OTL Kid: Yay! What time?

The Rest of Us: face palm.

Once we got OTL straightened out, I convinced the kids that this kind of art activity is one they could easily do at home. All that is needed is the following:

• cardboard cut into 1" X 2" rectangles. Be sure to cut it so that the wiggly corrugated cardboard line is visible on the 1" side. This will keep the cardboard sturdy enough for printing.
• tempra paint
• paper

I know, I know, paint on the floor? Really? I never claimed to be the Smartest Artist Teacher.

Group of finished third grade prints.

Want to make some printed Eiffel Towers of your own? Well, it's super easy. I thought I'd share with you the steps I had on display for the kids to follow.

1. We began by folding our paper in half both vertically and horizontally. After unfolding the paper completely, we brought the bottom of the paper up to the middle line and created another fold.
2. From there, we printed a vertical line from the top of the paper to the first horizontal crease. We added two diagonal lines and an intersecting horizontal line at the top.

3. We chatted about parallel lines and created two parallel lines from the ends of the diagonal lines. These were both the same length of the initial vertical line.

4. We crossed the initial vertical lines with intersecting horizontal lines. These were filled with diagonal lines that created X's.

5. All along we are learning factoids about the Eiffel Tower and it's creator Gustave Eiffel. We used the Eiffel Tower bulletin board and my windows as a helpful reminder. The second level of the tower was created with a printed rectangle shape.

6.  A triangle shape was created underneath that as were the long diagonal lines of the side of the towers legs.

7. From there, we created the arch and filled the legs of the tower with horizontal, vertical and intersecting diagonal lines.

And while I loved the end results of the prints, I wanted the kids to experience working in another medium and add their own personal flair to the project. Hence the chalking of their prints. I created the display of directions shown above to allow the kids to work independently on this portion of the project.

We also chatted about some of the famous structures in Paris that could be included in our chalked landscape like Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triumph and Notre Dame.

The key is not to let your paper move as you smudge the chalk upwards. If this happens, you might lose image in your design.

The kids had great fun with this project. I've already received a couple "I did this at home!" versions of both the prints and the chalk. Nothing makes this Evil Art Teacher happier. You'll have to let me know if you decide to give this a go. Just don't let me get my hands on your masterpiece...it's likely you won't get it back. That is until the end-of-the-year...which I could only dream was next week (just kidding...we have entirely too much fun in store!).