Big FAT Hen

As seen in a few varieties done by different art teachers I too have created my own version of the popular lesson on Keith Backer's "Big Fat Hen".  My 4th and 5th graders first looked through the book noting the style of his illustrations and then discussed what an illustrator does.  After this each students received a piece of colored paper and picked a copy of one of the hens from the book to attempt to draw, no directions given on how to draw it other than hinting to starting with the head and breaking it down into simple shapes then adding details.  Then they finished by using all construction paper crayons to make the colors of the hens pop, noting that Backer did not draw boring white, brown and black hens but bright colorful ones.   They also were told to add one detail to the bottom of the hen, a bug, chick, egg or whatever they felt fit.  Some chose to add color to the background, others didn't, over all a very fun drawing lesson that caused them to work independently and push themselves to truly see rather than just look at a picture.

K-1 Landscape Cows

 Foreground, Middle Ground, Back Ground-- the K-1 kiddos learned about this concept by first folding their paper in half to create a horizon line, then the drew a cow by tracing the body and head then connecting the pieces and adding the details.  They then learned that the cow was in the middle ground since its body crossed over the horizon line, they then added mountains and a sky in the background, small grass to the middle, and large blades of grass the the foreground.  Over all a very fun colorful project that they did a great job on!

^small notes on the board for them the reference while they worked to make sure they had all the parts of the cow and everything drawn in the correct grounds

 ^ We used colored crayons to draw in the details, helped to avoid showing pencil lines

 Above are two samples from Kindergarten classes and below are two from 1st graders, all did a great job making unique cows