Snowmen at Night

Introduction Questions. Discuss with a partner.

This project will be the Snowmen at Night. 

This is considered to be a 5 art class, or 5 week, project: 1 demonstration video per week.

Students will create 1 Snowmen at Night.

• Fiction - a story that is made up, imaginary, not real.

• Mood - feelings, mood of a picture shows a mood: it's happy or sad, cold or hot, exciting or quiet.

• 3/4 (three-quarter) view - not sideways and not straight forward, but instead a diagonal view of a person or object.

• Space - the area of the picture: Background - back of the picture. Foreground - front of the picture.

• Color Value - how dark or how bright colors are. Color Values help to create the mood of a picture. TINT has a bright color value and SHADE has a dark color value.

Please watch the Introduction Video below and then watch the read aloud video of Snowmen at Night (or show Snowmen at Night from YouTube). Next, follow the four instructional demonstration videos (1 instructional video per class) that will discuss the creation of the project and the goals of the project for the young artist to create a Snowmen at Night picture. Please pause or replay the Demonstration videos as needed.

Materials to be used: 1 sheet of either 12" x 18" paper, snowman tracer tool, pencils, large black crayons, watercolor paint, and tempera paint. NOTE: If paint is not available, I discuss other options to color and complete the project during the Demonstration videos.

Introduction Video to the project

Read Aloud Book: Snowmen at Night.

1. As an artist, pay attention to how the colors change from daytime to nighttime. How do the colors change to help create the time of day or night it is, and to help create a mood for the picture. Pay attention to the colors in the Background (the background is the back or rear area of a picture, the stuff that is in the back) in the book and the Foreground colors (the Foreground are the images in the front area of a picture)

2. Is this story Fiction or Non-Fiction? (answer: Fiction)

3. What really happened to the Snowmen? (answer: they actually melted during the night. But that is boring, so the author imaged that the snowmen went and played all night and were so tired the next day that they were all slumped over and shorter).

Snowmen at Night Story Video

As an artist, notice how the color values change from day to night. Why are brighter color values used? When are darker color values used? Why?

Day 1: Demonstration 1.

Day 2: Demonstration 2.

Day 3: Demonstration 3.

Day 4: Demonstration 4. Final Video.