3rd Grade - School of Fish

Inspired by the story Swimmy by Leo Leoni students learned about fish and how they swim in schools! Students reviewed a variety of real fish before they then were asked to create their own fish. The goal was to have the fish be larger than their hand, and have fins, a tail and some detail to make it an original. We then discussed composition, balance and reviewed tracing, what is repetition, how to overlap fish and how to have fish swim off the page. Students used the wax resist technique by tracing their fish completely in black crayon before painting each one carefully. Once the fish were painted we allowed them to dry and then used two watercolor techniques wet on wet and salt drizzle to create an ocean/water effect in the background.