Arts Integration: Mixed Media Rainbows
When it comes to arts integration, there are so many ways to do it. For this art lesson, we combined reading a beautiful and colorful story - Penguins Love Colors - with a creative mixed media art project that students enjoy. Keep reading to learn how easy this lesson is to incorporate in your classroom.
Arts Integration: Mixed Media Rainbows
This is a great introduction mixed media art project. Start by reading Penguins Love Colors, which is a fun transition from winter themes (penguins) to spring (rainbows). This is a fun book that younger elementary kids always love, but it can also be a great access point with older elementary as well. The story starts off by telling how much penguins love color and pointing out that everything is white where they live. You can use this to teach about contrast and value with visual art.
Setting Up the Lesson
The supplies you’ll need are:
white sheet of tagboard
rubber stamps
black stamp ink
scissors
glue
Directions
To create the piece, students started with a white sheet of tagboard to represent the snow from the story. Then they used black ink and large rubber stamps to create a pattern and implied texture. The black and white represented the contrast of the black and white of the penguins in the book.
They used acrylic to paint a rainbow on another sheet of paper and let it dry. Once it was dry they cut it out on the top arch. Then, they glued the rainbow to the background. The rainbow looks best aligned to the bottom of the background paper.
They were given the choice of whether to do this, but most used white school glue and gold leaf to add just a bit of shine in the background and/or on the rainbow. Letting younger students use gold leaf is a great way to help them start learning they don't always have control over what the media will do.
The students will always get a beautiful result with gold leaf, but they cannot control how it looks because of the way it has to be applied. I recommend using a paintbrush to apply glue in random places on the paper. Give it a few seconds to start drying. This will make the glue tacky instead of wet.
Then, place a sheet of gold leaf on top of the glue and burnish it with the blunt end of the glue bottle. Finally, just pull the gold leaf sheet away from the paper. The gold leaf will be left behind. They could choose whether they wanted to trace the lines of the rainbow with a black permanent marker, Slick paint (there is an affiliate link to add for that paint).
Tips to Remember
This was harder for some than others, but both using the marker and the paint to trace provide some excellent fine motor work for all ages. Having both options available also lets you differentiate that process for readiness levels.
An assessment idea for this would be informal observation. As the teacher, look for whether or not the students can articulate the idea of contrast and what the white, black, and rainbow colors represent from the book.
Purchase the Rainbow Mixed Media Art Project
To make it much easier for you, I’ve created a Rainbow Art Lesson that you can purchase, download, print, and use at your convenience. It’s a super fun art lesson with language activities. It can also be used to fill up your art sub tub with no-prep art projects. These are easy to implement for substitute teachers. Plus, the engagement will help with behavior! Perfect for art integration, writing prompts, homeschooling, and art teachers looking for fun mini-lessons. Great for language arts teachers as well. This resource is adaptable across multiple grade levels.
In the resource you’ll receive an 11 page non-editable PDF including game sheet, reflection sheets, coloring page, finished example, and writing activities.
Value of Hand-Drawn Resource
You might notice not all of this resource is digitally created. That is for a BIG and IMPORTANT reason. Students can be pretty hard on themselves about their drawing. They expect perfection because usually what they are looking at is a digitally created image. Of course, no child can draw like that! I've found that hand-drawn resources help take the pressure off so kids don't feel like they have to be perfect. It is a buffer for them. They see the hand-drawn work and get engaged because they aren't as afraid of making mistakes.
Can’t wait to hear how this lesson goes in your classroom!