Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Lorax

Beautiful composition Daniella(3rd grade). I particularly like your happy Swomee-Swans!
I love your take on the Lorax with the added chopped down Truffula tree Harrison(4th grade)!
Alexis, 8
Savannah, 9
Lacey, 6


Kindergarten and 1st Grade Loraxes in Progress


In honor of Dr. Seuss' Birthday on March 2nd, all my students are working on a piece inspired by his beloved book, The Lorax. Written in 1971, the book almost parallels the plight of the Amazon Rainforest. The Lorax is a small creature who details the story of the greedy Once-ler who has chopped down all of the Truffula Trees to create a useless item known as a Thneed. As a consequence, many of the creatures that depended on the Truffula tree for survival have been driven out. One could swap the Amazon's Kapok Tree for the Truffula, Toucans for the Swomee- Swans, and The Sloth for Bar-ba-loots.
The children followed a direct line drawing lesson to create their Lorax as he sits on his tree trunk perch. I love his quote, "I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues." They could then decide to create his surrounding environment with tree stumps, beautiful Truffulas, Swomee-Swans, Humming-Fish ect.. They used a combination of marker, tempera and watercolor.
(I discovered that The Lorax will be an animated motion picture in March 2012)
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4 comments:

  1. Patty PalmerMarch 3, 2011 at 3:47 PM

    Great idea for Dr. Suess day. The kids did a great job!

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  2. ChristinaMarch 5, 2011 at 6:43 AM

    I'm sure this is a silly question, but I've googled the term and can't find it anywhere...could you tell me what a direct line drawing is? I am not an art teacher, I'm just a mom trying to supplement my children's education with art...their school does not have an art program due to budget cuts. I feel that art is important for so many reasons and schools really do their students a great disservice by cutting it. thank you so much for taking the time to put together this wonderful blog. I feel very inspired and also prepared to help my children be artists.

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  3. MaryMarch 5, 2011 at 1:47 PM

    Thanks for the nice comment Christina! A direct line drawing or guided line drawing is just a way of taking an image or subject and breaking it down into steps to make it easier to draw. This can be especially helpful for younger children. So for the Lorax, I started out with a half circle for the head, followed by an oval for the nose, 2 egg shapes for the eyes and so on. I always tell the kids that everyone will have a completely different (Lorax) even though they're following the same directions. That's the beauty of art.
    So many schools are cutting the arts. My daughter's school has to raise money every year just to keep a part-time art teacher. That's wonderful that you are stepping in to be your children's personal art instructor.
    I hope this helped a bit. Thanks again for your kind words. Happy creating to you and your children!

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  4. AnonymousMay 20, 2011 at 7:06 PM

    I love this idea. Can you send me the directions for the art lesson? We are doing a tree study and I would love to do this with my kindergarten students.
    My e-mail is kelseymac01@hotmail.com

    Thanks!

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