1st Grade Newspaper Owl paintings

First grade students just finished forming owls out of clay. While we waited for them to dry out and cycle through the kiln, we read Jane Yolen's book Owl Moon, studied characteristics of owls, and created a 2D project using watercolor resist and newspaper collage.

Class 1: students prepared a background by drawing a full moon, stars, and snowflakes on a piece of 9x12" watercolor paper with white oil pastel. We used dark colors of watercolor paint to fill in the night sky. Students were impressed that the white pastel still shows up after the paint is brushed onto the paper!

Class 2: Using a black crayon, students drew owls on a piece of newspaper (after discussing how the texture of the words reminds us of the stripes on an owl's feathers). We glued our owls to the background, then added yellow eyes, a brown branch and owl feet. We added the textures of feathers and bark to complete our work.

Next week we will glaze our freshly-fired ceramic!