We're Going on a Hidden Safari!

What animals come to your mind when you think of a safari?  Maybe a lion? A zebra? A monkey? A tiger? A giraffe?  What variety of animals we would see if we were to go on an African safari!  Well, we did go on a safari in art class, come along with me as I share what we discovered on our hidden safari adventure! :)  In this lesson project we learned about warm and cool colors that make up our color wheel.  Warm colors would include: reds, oranges, and yellows; we associate warm colors to something warm like a fire.  Cool colors would include: greens, blues, and purples; we associate something cool like water.  So to begin our work with warm and cool colors in our safari project, we first needed to make our "special glasses" to view our hidden animals!  To do this, we made a cut-out of a pair of glasses made out of construction paper.  To make them "special" we attached red cellophane (notice, it is red!..a warm color!) to act as our colored lenses.  The next part of the project was to choose an animal to draw on an 8 1/2 x 11 white piece of paper.  I chose a giraffe, because it is one of my favorite animals! :)  To make it a more interesting time of drawing and a great time to work our brains and concentration, we drew our animal using the upside down contour drawing technique. It made us look at the details in the animal as we drew it, and was a drawing concept that was not common to us, but one that you just do the best you can in! :)  Another aspect we included was that we drew our animal lightly with a sky blue colored pencil (notice, it is blue!..a cool color!) Once I drew my giraffe and a tall tree next to him to balance the drawing, I turned it right side up and my drawing was on it's way to being complete!  To incorporate the "hidden" aspect of the project, I then covered my giraffe with different patterns and designs using warm colored pencils: red, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, pink, and red-violet.  I made sure that the warm colors covered up my cool colored giraffe so it was hard to see it when looking at it.  Something is going to happen that has to do with these specific colors I used that is really neat once I'm all done with this safari animal!  To complete it, I framed it, and posted three clues/facts about giraffes on an index card for viewers to guess my hidden safari animal!  Now, for the exciting part...using the "special glasses!"  Once you put on the red glasses, the red acts as a filter to the warm colors of the designs and patterns on the paper, and brings out the cool color...my blue giraffe!  How cool is that?! :)  (I posted a zoomed-in picture for you to see how the drawing looks viewed through the red special glasses!)

For an extension activity, I would have the students get in groups, and we will pretend we are going on a safari in Africa as a class!  I will have each group use a piece of poster board to show with words or pictures the aspects of our field trip safari.  I will have them discuss as a group what animals we would come about during the journey, what safety precautions we would need to keep in mind, food we would bring, how we would travel, and other ideas they may want to share.  Once each group is finished brainstorming and have created their poster, I will have them share it with the class.  I think this would be a fun way for the students to use their bright minds and prior knowledge to come up with some great ideas to think about and discuss, what a class adventure in an African safari would be like! :)

Do you see the giraffe's head through the special red safari glasses?! :)