2nd-Boats at Sea

2nd Grade: Winslow Homer Marine Art

2nd Graders viewed some of Homer's Marine art. Homer painted what he observed. He painted all kinds of weather in his seascapes-windy seas, calmy seas. He painted people catching lobsters and fish. He painted children and adult fisherman. He painted many kinds of skies. It is very inspiring to look at his work and imagine yourself out on the ocean. He painted off the New England coast. After looking at his amazing work, students were inspired to get to work creating their own Marine time art. (and yes, I did have to explain the difference between Marines as in the people who protect America and Marine as in art of the sea) I love students-always thinking!!

I did a step-by-step instruction of a basic fishing boat. This was very fun for students..I get the feeling most had not attempted to draw a fishing boat before..or at least not one with much detail. As we drew, I paused to explain the purpose of each part of the boat-captain's quarters, fishing reel, life preservers, anchor, etc. It helped to pique their interest that Mr. Boudreaux aka my husband aka a Davis substitute teacher was a marine biologist on the Gulf of Mexico for 5 years. Students always enjoy hearing about his great adventures out in the ocean!

After the step -by-step, students added color with crayola broad tipped markers. We did do a mini-review here of warm vs. cool colors. They were limited to using warm colors for most of the boat. I did make exceptions. They could use cool colors for the preserves, anchor and flag. I knew the sky and water would be all cool colors, so this helped to organize the flow of the art and created contrast. Students added water to the larger area of the boat to create values. Next day, students added chalk pastel to the sky. They could add multiple shades of blue if they liked. Students also added oil pastel to the ocean. I did a step by step of adding blue, then green, then white and blending to get various hues of bluish green tones. Students also drew fish on a separate piece of white cardstock. They traced these with sharpie and colored with markers. I had lots of reference sheets of fish for this and we did a step by step as well. Students cut out the fish and glued into their picture. Some students added crabs and other sea creatures. This was a LONG project, but I think they came out Amazing!