More Blue Dog

Grade 2/3: Animal Drawing and Painting

This was a great class, full of enthusiasm – and so I was happy to bring along one of my favourite books to share with them, one that would provide the impetus for a fun art lesson. “Why is Blue Dog Blue?” by George Rodrigue.

I read it out to them, with pauses in all the right places, which really got into the fun of the book. We enjoyed the illustrations and talked about the different ways Rodrigue painted Blue Dog in different places and with different backgrounds. Then we spent some time brainstorming: What colour would Blue Dog be when he is – ?

I gave them each a slip of paper that would start them out: Blue Dog is ______ when he is _______. It didn’t take long for them to complete because the ideas were already buzzing! The next step was to draw their version of Blue Dog and to put him in a situation that illustrated their sentence. Equipped with pencil and a large sheet of paper, they worked out their drawings, to follow up with black painted lines.