Tinted City Skyline Paintings

To sum up this painting project, I can only say "Trial and Error".  I love the results, but it has taken me a few years to 'perfect' my teaching strategies to ensure student success.  Lesson learned: try and try again.  The basic idea is to simplify it to the extent where students are allowed one large 'puddle' of white paint in the middle of their palette.  They are allowed to use only one color.  Next, I demonstrate the mixing process and tell them to trust me, even though it looks like the color isn't changing, we are going for a gradual effect.  They have to mix just one dab of color into the entire white 'puddle', leaving no swirls of color or white paint.  We start with a white circle, which is the light source and each ring around that circle is just slightly darker each time.  Today after four people had to start over, I went ahead and told them that they have to mix the dab of color 15 times into the white 'puddle' before painting the next ring, because if they don't mix the color well enough, the ring is much darker from the residual paint left on the paintbrush.  Like I said...trial and error!  These are just the beginning of some very stunning, visually appealing works of art:

Next class period, we will begin our city silhouettes using black construction paper: