Peacocks with shimmer and bling - grade 2

I recently blogged here about Alex Beard's "Monkey see, Monkey Draw" book and the associated art game.In this game, my 2nd graders traced their hands and turned them into something, but NOT a turkey. Students had some interesting results, including several peacocks. Meanwhile, I had been bookmarking some lovely peacock projects that I'd seen on other blogs. So I thought it was time that we actually make our own peacocks. Here's what we did.

While the lessons I had bookmarked had produced lovely results, I decided to do things my own way, with decidedly varied results. We began by watching a video of peacocks fanning their beautiful displays, and we examined some authentic peacock feathers. We looked carefully at the shape of the bird's body and their unique features.

The kids drew their peacocks with pencils, outlined the birds and the 'eyes' on the feathers with Sharpies, and then began to paint. We used some liquid watercolors in blue, turquoise, and sparkly 'black' (more of a dark green, really) and some Prang metallic temperas I had leftover from a Klimt project a couple of years ago.

We completed the peacocks with white oil pastels for the stems of the feathers and the stripe above and below the eye, other color oil pastels for the feather lines and anywhere else appropriate, and finally sequins for 'bling'. By the way, don't you love the pigeon-toed peacock on the left below?

Some peacocks were quite successful, and others, well, I'll show you some of them too.

Below are two unique peacocks. The painting on the left was unique in the choice of a limited color palette. Good job! The painting on the right was, well, exuberant to say the least. I love the shape of the bird body.

And then there's a peacock that looks like it got caught in a windstorm, and another with colorful pine tree branches instead of feathers.

And did this peacock on the left below get his feathers stuck in a revolving door? I guess he doesn't want to be recognized, since it looks like he's wearing dark glasses.

I think the peacock on the left below is having a 'bad feather day' perhaps, and the one on the right is attempting (successfully, I guess) peacock camouflage. Where's the peacock?

Blogger insists on rotating the images below, but I had to share them anyhow. We've got, first, the Jackson Pollock action painting version, or maybe a 2nd grade attempt at abstract expressionism, then a bird with, instead of eyes on his feathers, I think they are calamari rings, and finally a beautiful bird with feathers that have been scared straight.

By the way, below is the metallic paint. It came in a set of several colors, metallic green, blue, violet, red, copper, silver, gold, and a steel blue color. They look gorgeous in the bottle but are very disappointing paints. They have a gelatinous consistency and do not have much coverage. You need to layer them to get any real vibrancy, and therefore require more patience than that of an average 2nd grader. But the kids are happy with their peacocks, so I am too.