Painting to Music

Grade 1/2 classes are painting to Music! It has been a great experience with these students, and it is still on the go. This project has also been an excellent link to the Colour unit in Science and our School Development Plan on Reading Comprehension.

I expanded the project to really break down the pieces that put an abstract painting together, but this concept of painting could be done once a month, where students create a collection, choosing their most successful paintings for a gallery.

1. Talk about abstract painting

- Discuss with students their definition of "abstract" and why people create abstract images. Note any specific vocabulary they use: expression, emotion.
- Google a variety of abstract images, paying attention to lines, shapes, textures and colours
- Give students time to free draw to music

2. Choose the music students are going to paint.

- Because I wanted variety in the kinds of paintings, I chose the "William Tell Overture", which has four different parts.
- Each class we listened to a new part

3. Students free draw while listening to your selected music

- Model how as the music changes, so does the way your pencil moves
- Remember lines, shapes and textures!
- If you would like examples of these, please email me

4. Chart student ideas around emotion, lines/shapes/textures and colours

- Divide your chart paper into these three sections and write down their ideas
**For this part and working with 3 classes, I compiled the most interesting/popular ideas into 1 piece of chart paper at the end of all the discussions
**For the William Tell Overture, we had 1 chart paper for each part of the song

5. Students paint while listening to the music as a practice run

- We reviewed the chart papers for each part of William Tell before we started painting.
- In one class time each student painted 4 paintings to represent the 4 parts
- It is meant to be quick so they don't get hung up on painting a picture, but instead creating an abstract image

6. Look at our paintings to evaluate and give each other feedback

- Most students could not remember which of their four paintings was for what part, which made for a strong conversation about why that was :)
- Students now had a better idea and understanding that for each part of the William Tell Overture, their paintings should have looked very different from one another. They needed to more deliberately choose lines, shapes, textures and colours that more accurately represented each part.

7. Students paint again while listening to the music as another practice run

- This time, you could see student consciously choosing details from our chart paper to help them hone in on specifically what they were going to do for each part

8. Students evaluate their paintings again, this time choosing their favorite/most successful one

9. Students complete a planning sheet for the part of their choice

- This has the students really focus on the descriptive words they connect with the most, the specific lines/shapes/textures they are going to use and the specific colours they are going to mix.

10. Create the final painting

- Take one or several classes to create the final painting

11. Write about the painting!