One way for art teachers to introduce the seven elements of art to elementary students is to study each element as it is used in different artworks depicting the same simple subject. Using elementary art lesson plans, an art teacher can focus the attention of elementary students on similarities and differences between each element by presenting each element as it is used to depict a valentine heart.
In this lesson, teachers teach the art element texture. Art teachers introduce and define two-dimensional texture and three-dimensional texture. Students then gain experience with using the art element texture by creating artworks in two Valentine's Day art activities.
How to Teach Art Element Two-Dimensional Texture with Valentine Hearts
Discuss how the texture of an artwork is the way its surface looks. Focus first on two-dimensional texture. Explain that a two-dimensional texture is created on a flat surface on which the artist designs regular patterns or otherwise draws lines, dots, streaks, and other marks. Sometimes the texture is meant to still look flat, while other times a texture creates the illusion of real depth.
Provide students with crayons and heart shapes cut from thin paper and have them go around the classroom or outside the school and make rubbings of different surfaces. Then, have small groups of students share their rubbings with each other and work together to come up with adjectives such as grainy, bumpy, rough, smooth, and dotted to describe each rubbing.
Next, provide students with markers or colored pencils and heart shapes cut from thick construction paper. Have students draw different kinds of lines, different arrangements of dots, or any other repeated pattern they can imagine. Invite students to present their patterns to the class and have the class work together to discuss and describe the different patterns and how they were created.
Finally, for a Valentine's Day art activity exploring the effects an artist can create with two-dimensional textures, provide students with more paper cutout hearts along with tempera paints and various tools, such as toothbrushes, combs, plastic utensils, and small paint brushes. Have students use their fingers and the tools to experiment with creating various textures on the different paper cutout hearts.
As a focus for this activity, suggest that students try to use the colors of the paint and the different textures to convey different moods a heart might feel, such as anger, happiness, sadness, fear, loneliness, love, or nervousness. For example, a sad heart might be blue and covered with comb scratches, while a happy heart might be red and covered with thumbprints. Once students are done, group the hearts that were meant to convey the same emotions and discuss how different student artists used different colors and textures to express the same feelings.
How to Teach Art Element Three-Dimensional Texture with Valentine Hearts
Once two-dimensional textures have been covered thoroughly, turn to three-dimensional textures. Discuss how three-dimensional textures pop out of a flat background into the third dimension of real life space. Sometimes they are meant to be felt, while other times the viewer experiences them only by looking at them.
Then, for a Valentine's Day art activity exploring the effects an artist can create with three-dimensional textures, provide students with a variety of collage materials (with a variety of textures), such as tissue paper, foil, feathers, pom-pom balls, pipe cleaners, small pieces of cloth fabric or fake leather, corrugated cardboard, bubble wrap, small beads, tiny silk flowers, small rocks, uncooked pasta, or cotton balls.
Again, suggest that students make hearts to express different emotions, this time by gluing collage materials to cardboard heart cutouts to create different three-dimensional textures. Again, once students are done, group the hearts by emotion and discuss the different choices each artist made and techniques he or she used to convey each feeling.
Textures add a finished touch to artworks. Understanding how texture can be used to create different effects will help students interpret other people's artworks better. Mastering the ability to create different textures will also assist students in creating more sophisticated effects in their own artworks.
Once art teachers have begun exploring how to teach art elements with Valentine hearts, teachers can continue elementary students' introduction to the seven elements of art with a Valentine's Day elementary art lesson plan that uses hearts to teach art elements line and shape, a Valentine's Day elementary art lesson plan that uses hearts to teach art elements color and value, and a third that uses hearts to teach art elements form and space.
Renee Carver - Renée Carver has an Elementary Education degree and over ten years of experience writing and editing children's educational products.
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