If you’ve been following my blog for any time length of time, you might have noticed that in addition to art, my biggest love is books. I incorporate books into my art lessons every chance I get. They’re my biggest source of inspiration when it comes to dreaming up lessons and books are usually the last thing I think about before nodding off to sleep. Leo Lionni’s “A Color of His Own” speaks to a child’s never-ending quest to be liked just as they are. The illustrations are simple, clean and perfect.
Random House has a wonderful site devote to Leo Lionni. His books as well as biographical information is included. Check it out here.
I read this story to my kinder classes and embarked on a directed line drawing of a chameleon. We began by drawing the eye, then a triangle for the head and kept right on going around the body to make a curly, whirly tail. So fun! We used crayons to draw shapes or lines, then filled in the sections with watercolor paints. I used pan watercolors with one class and liquid watercolors with another. The class using pans didn’t finish the project in the thirty minute time-frame. The class using the liquid watercolors did. I think there is a great deal of benefit from learning how to mingle watercolor paints from the pan, but it seems to work better for older children. If you have a small group, pan watercolors are perfectly fine.
Enjoy!
You are not going to believe this, but I just bought this book yesterday at an antique shop with the intention of doing a “Deep Space Sparkle” themed painting of it. I guess I was meant to buy it!
Very serendipitous!
I am soo thrilled that you are incorporating art with picture books! I just love children’s lit and always feel clueless regarding art, since we don’t have a formal art teacher. I went this weekend and bought your recommended materials to make the scarecrow project…going to read “Waltz of the Scarecrow” by Constance McGeorge & have the kids create their own! I am anxious to see how oil pastels do…I haven’t picked one of those up in about 15 years! Thanks for the inspiration!
Mr. Lionni is one of my favorite authors! I read this to my kinders last year, so this year we’ll read and paint! Thanks!
The boys just love the lizards… I love your site. Use it all the time. Thanks,
Cute project but I really wanted to stop and say, I LOVE the updated website. WOWSA! It looks awesome. Easy to read and navigate.. Well done!
I totally love how you do these with the kids! I do this with my students too, however, we read Chameleon’s Colors by Chisato Tashiro, another great chameleon story!
http://davinciswings.blogspot.com/2010/05/preppy-kindergarten-chameleons.html
Gotta love chameleons, huh? They make the best subject for an art lesson!
How funny. I did this project as a filler for my K’s last week when I had time left at the end of class. I am a huge fan of your site.
Thanks for all you do on here!
jess
We used your ideas with the book The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle. The class is K/1st blended. Each child did their own version of the chameleon and then added different animal parts that I had pre-cut from various papers (foil, tissue,papers of varying thickness, etc) to create their very own mixed up lizard. Then they wrote a description of their animal—just like in the book!
Thanks for inspiring meg who inspired me! I am posting our cute attempt at this as I type! xox
I just did this project with a 1st grade class today – It was excellent. The segment we were studying had to do with using colors and mixing.
I split the chameleon using four lines and then only using primary colors for the body. I did the first segment near the head blue watercolor, left space, center segment red water color, space and then last segment yellow. I then had the kids get extra watery paint of each color and blend the two bordering colors making a new color – the blue/red bordered segment turned purple and the yellow/red segment turned orange.
We then used what ever color they wanted for the head/legs/tail.
They turned out great and the kids had awesome rainbow chameleons using three colors.
Hopefully that made sense.
Love this technique! Thanks for sharing.
Outstanding information on Deep Space Sparkle – Chameleon Art Lesson for Children… It is definitely
one of the most helpful that I’ve found in a long time.
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