Fourth Grade Imaginative Instruments

Materials Needed

• Oil pastels
• Fine line black markers- permanent
• Colored pencils
• Sheet music
• Colored construction paper
• Construction paper crayons
• Colored markers
• Mod podge
• Sketchbooks
 
Other Resources

The Remarkable Farkle McBride- John Lithgow

“Brass Section”- Romare Bearden
“Musical Forms”- Georges Braque

Fourth grade read the book The Remarkable Farkle McBride by John Lithgow and then made a list of all of the instruments that were presented in the book. Each student chose 2 instruments that interested them (from different families- strings, woodwinds, brass, etc) and practiced drawing them in their sketchbooks using either photos or instruments that I had handy in my room.

 

I showed them how they could create shadows and highlights in a drawing by using color value. Darker values creating the shadows and lighter values creating the highlights. They chose 1 of thier instruments for their project and drew it on a piece of construction paper. They had to draw the same instrument at least 3 more times, but they had to draw it different sizes. When they were finished, they had at least 3 of the same instrument in varying sizes.

 

Each instrument was then colored using a different medium. I had oil pastels, color stix, markers, construction paper crayons, etc for them and demonstrated how each could be used to create the effect that we were looking for.

 

When they colored their instruments, they added shadows and highlights by using tints and shades of color.

 

After each instrument was colored, we used pieces of old music scores and glued these onto our artwork and then covered the composition with a layer of Mod Podge.

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