I don’t usually use acrylic paint in class, especially not with elementary aged students.  However, I came across a project that just wouldn’t work with tempera paint.  This project was inspired by the book Ancient Thunder by Leo Yerxa.  Yerxa’s illustrations are amazing.  He studied tunics painted by the Ojibwe Indians.  The original tunics were actually leather.  To make our paper feel and look more leather-like, we crumpled up brown craft paper and smoothed it out.  This made it softer and also created some wrinkles that came in handy later in the project.

We drew horses and some buffalo with chalk and then painted with acrylic paint.  Acrylic paint was a whole new experience for most of these students.  I think they enjoyed experimenting with what you can do with acrylic and how it is different from tempera.  The plan for the project was to start with darker colors and add highlights with a slightly lighter color on the wrinkles.  This was a harder concept than I thought.  A few really got it, but I think we need more practice with acrylic.  I am happy to report that there weren’t any accidents (stained clothes/carpet), so I am willing to give this medium another try.  I think they really enjoyed this project.  Photographing the acrylic paintings with florescent lighting was tricky.  The glare was so bad on a few that I couldn’t use them.  I’ll have more pictures to post next week.