Teacher Quality Standard 3

Teachers plan and deliver effective instruction and create an environment that facilitates learning for their students.

Element A

Teachers demonstrate knowledge about the ways in which learning takes place, including the levels of intellectual, physical, social, and emotional development of their students.

Student Learning Objective - (6-Day Studio)

Students will use value to create the illusion of form and depth on a 2D surface while explaining how light and dark communicate mood and spatial relationships.

I Can Statements

Introduction to Value
I can explain what value is and why artists use light and dark in art.
I can identify where the light is and where the shadows are in an artwork.

Technique Exploration
I can use drawing tools to create light, dark, and middle values.
I can use an eraser as a drawing tool to create highlights and show form.

Observation and Meaning
I can describe how value helps make a drawing look 3D on a 2D surface.
I can explain how value can make artwork feel calm, dramatic, mysterious, or emotional.

Reflection
I can talk about how I used value in my artwork.
I can explain how light and shadow helped create mood and depth.

Value: Light, Shadow, Mood, and Depth (3rd Grade)

Colorado Academic Standards – Visual Arts (1st Grade)

Standard 1: Observe and Learn to Comprehend
Students analyze how artists use value to create mood, light, and depth in artworks.

Standard 2: Envision and Critique to Reflect
Students describe and interpret how light and shadow affect the way artwork feels and appears.

Standard 3: Invent and Discover to Create
Students experiment with drawing techniques to create value and make forms appear three-dimensional.

Standard 4: Relate and Connect to Transfer
Students connect value to real-world observation by noticing how light, shadow, and contrast shape the objects and environments around them.

Lesson Overview

In this value unit, students explored how artists use the range from light to dark to create mood, emotion, and depth in artwork. Students investigated value through direct drawing practice, artist examples, and experimentation with techniques that helped them understand how a 2D surface can appear 3D. The lesson included a “stretch and explore” activity using an eraser as a drawing tool, allowing students to physically experience how subtractive mark-making can reveal highlights and shape form. The slide presentation emphasized that value helps artists show where light is, where shadows fall, and how an image can feel calm, dramatic, mysterious, or exciting.

Students looked at artists such as Robert Longo, Andrew Wyeth, Caravaggio, Richard Serra, and Louise Nevelson to understand that value can function in different ways across styles and media, for example, from highly dramatic contrast to subtle landscape atmosphere to sculptural relationships of light and shadow. The lesson also supported future learning by helping students connect value to later exploration in drawing, sculpture, and spatial thinking.

Mr. Zach- Lesson Slide Deck

Mr.Zach-Value

Student Examples

Value Unit

Value-Student Work

Reflection

This lesson was effective because students were able to connect a technical concept—value—to something meaningful and visible: mood, emotion, and depth. The structure of the lesson supported how young students learn best by combining direct modeling, visual references, and physical experimentation. The eraser drawing activity was especially useful because it gave students an accessible way to understand highlights and form through action rather than explanation alone. The lesson also provided a strong bridge into later conversations about how artists make things look real, dramatic, or spatial.

If I were to revise the lesson, I would build in even more time for students to compare how different artists use value in different ways, and I would provide additional reflection opportunities for students to explain how their own work uses light and shadow to create feeling and depth.

TQS III, Element A Connection

This lesson reflects strong alignment with Teacher Quality Standard III, Element A because it was designed with the developmental needs of students in mind. Intellectually, students were introduced to value through clear visual examples, repeated language, and concrete artist references that supported understanding of abstract ideas like mood and depth. Physically, students engaged in hands-on drawing processes that matched their developmental level, including experimenting with pressure, shading, and erasing as active mark-making strategies. Socially, the lesson encouraged students to discuss what they noticed in artworks and build understanding through shared observation. Emotionally, the lesson connected value to feeling, helping students understand that art can communicate calm, mystery, drama, and emotion through light and dark relationships.