This lesson was inspired by a post on the blog Deep Space Sparkle (see link below). The kids loved each and every step of the process, which began with drawing 'real' looking pumpkins. Not perfectly round pumpkins with perfectly symmetrical sections and perfectly rectangular pumpkin stems. Not our pumpkins! Ours were destined to resemble what one might actually find upon visiting the pumpkin patch. Lopsided, tall, skinny, lumpy, bumpy, lopsided pumpkins of of shapes and sizes. Our pumpkins were lumpy and bumpy with soft curves. They had pointy, crooked, stubby, and everything in between stems. Real pumpkins.
They drew some random leaves around their pumpkins before outlining in black crayon. We read Little Blue and Little Yellow, by Leo Lionni, a story of friendship, colours, diversity, and so much more. These artists were ready to mix colours! The children were given RED, YELLOW, and BLUE paint. They mixed the red and yellow right on their papers to make ORANGE. No cleaning paintbrushes! For the leaves they mixed yellow and blue to make GREEN and then mixed all three colours to make BROWN for their stems. Awesome pretty much sums it up.
After the paint was dry, the pumpkins and leaves were cut out and glued on black construction paper. To finish the night-time pumpkins, details such as shading on the pumpkin, a glowing moon, twinkling stars and springy tendrils were added with chalk pastels.
Check out these amazing night-time pumpkins. Who wouldn't want to visit this pumpkin patch? Pop by for a peek at our pumpkins!
