4th Grade: Shading on Snowmen

Shading is a very important, yet challenging art skill to learn. I introduced to fourth grade what shading is, explaining shadows and highlights and what causes them. Once an artist can learn how to shade they can add a realistic element to their art. The fourth graders started their shading practice with a fun snowman project. This was a one day project where students tried to bring a snow man to life by making in look more dimensional and round. They added highlights to the side where their light source was and shadows to the other. We talked about why the paper is a "medium tone" because the paper is already a color. The students used oil pastel so that if they wanted to smudge the shadows and highlights they could.