Hot Cocoa with both kinds of STEAM

Rotoscope animation (drawn over video) of Mrs. Fuglestad and steamy hot cocoa

UPDATE: I Packaged the Animated Still Life Lesson with Hot Chocolate here!

with Step-by-step directions, animations, video tutorials, augmented reality steps

Click the image to explore the packaged lesson

This third grade lesson idea will introduce my students to the concept of drawing a form from a shape. Specifically, they will change a rectangle into a cylindrical mug full of steamy hot chocolate. They will then make this drawing into a still life with clear foreground and background, fill it with both shape and line pattern, and use color balance as they paint. This painting will then have a digital extension (making it transdigital) where they will animate steam coming from the mug, (possibly floating marshmallows), and snow falling out the window in the background.

Step One: Understanding cylinders

Focus on the RIM of the mug. See how the shape shifts from a circle to oval

I took a photo of a mug and projected on my interactive board. I then asked students to take turns finding the contour lines to help them see the curves of the rim, bottom, handle, and vertical edges. This whole class exercise help us focus on the drawing challenges before they began trying it on their paper.

Step Two: Begin drawing the cylinder

Do you see the rectangle and half circle in the mug and handle?

I had 4" x 6" rectangles for each student and an old CD to get them started. These tracers help them plan the composition of their still life before they began drawing since they are concrete measures of size and placement to help avoid the frustration of redrawing when they realize that the object was too small, too high on the paper or too low. This also gave students a way to clearly see the transformation of shape to form as well.

Step Three: Compose a still life

We will take out the rulers and create vertical and horizontal lines stop and start again to indicate overlapping to depict the edge of a table and a window in the background. We need both elements for our future animation and pattern design. 

Step Four: Draw a plan for pattern

Step Five: Paint with color balance

Finished Student Paintings

See the gallery of finished art on Artsonia here.

Step Six: Animation of steam & snow

We will import our painting into the Do Ink Animation app to create a flipbook style animation with a handful of frames. Then combine the animation and painting in the composition mode of the same app. More info coming soon...

My first draft. This is a digital drawing and animation just to help get the idea

View the Gallery of Finished Animations

#SERENDIPITY

On the day I first introduced this lesson to third graders, in comes this student wearing a steaming hot cup of cocoa. Students immediately asked if their animation could include marshmallows based on her design. Love how this art making idea fit exactly into their current mood.

Resources: Polar Express

All of the resources from drawing, to painting, to animating, to showcasing the finished pieces with augmented reality are packaged in my Animated Still Life with Hot Chocolate lesson resource. 

explore

Full story of the Polar Express book (16 minutes)

Hot chocolate scene of Polar Express animated movie (3 minutes)