Chiaroscuro Study Lesson

Intern: Nik Arnoldi

Date: January 17^th, 2013

Lesson/Activity Title: Chiaroscuro Study

Standards Addressed: Colorado Academic Standards, Visual Arts, Standard 1, Social Studies Standard 1

Purpose: Students will learn valuable sketching skills that they will use in their future projects to capture their observations.

Learning Objectives: Students will be able to use shading to illustrate a light source’s effect on a subject.

Materials: Peach and tan construction paper, charcoal pencils, black colored pencils, white colored pencils, desk lamps, black butcher paper, various classroom objects to be used as a subject

Introduction: I will discuss with students what chiaroscuro is, what it means, and the historical significance of this illustrative style. I will show them examples  of chiaroscuro from the Renaissance and specifically from the leader we are studying, Galileo. We will all create “shading bars”, which will show the shading and highlighting values that can be created with the sketching tools they have available. They will keep these handy with the activity that we will do.

Activity/Procedures: Students will be directed to illustrate one of four still life setups in the classroom. The lights will be turned out and the lamps will be turned on over the still life setups. Students will be guided to use the shading bars to examine the parts that need to be shaded or highlighted to show a full range of values. They will be instructed that they need to use at least four of the values that they created on their shading bar, which will be divided into eight equal sections. Up to six students may sit at a still life setup at one time.

Closure:  We will discuss some of the challenges and successes that we noticed in doing this project. I will share that we will have these mounted and in the hallway, and will do a “gallery walk” the next morning, where we use sticky notes to offer one compliment about each illustration.

Differentiation/Adaptation:

1.      A student may choose which still-life setup they would like to draw.

2.      A student may choose from a couple different colors of neutral-toned paper.

3.      A student may chose to use a black colored pencil over charcoal pencils.

4.      Student B who has trouble with drawing and fine motor control, I will assess him based on his own shading bar.

Assessment: I will use the shading bar to assess whether or not they have used four different values in their composition.

Extensions:

1.      Students will use these skills in their field journals.

2.      Students will use these skills to capture their observations in our upcoming experiments that we will do in studying Galileo