Mini Lesson Plan: Texture
Sheriff Cary Cactus sings us a song about the hard lessons that his life in the gritty desert taught him.
When I think about creating a piece of art, I know I would start by thinking of all the brilliant colours and creative shapes I’m going to use. A curvy, green snake…a black-and-white zebra…a round, brown teddy bear…so many cool ideas! All these sound good by themselves, but do you know what could really take your artwork to the next level? Texture!
Activity 1: Twinkle Trails Episode 20 — The Texture Desert
Miss Twinkle and and class are in the gritty, rough desert and ready to learn! This week, they’re learning all about textures with long-time desert resident, Sheriff Cary Cactus!
What is Texture?
- Texture refers to how an object feels or looks as though it might feel.
- All surfaces have texture. (Yes, smooth is a texture.)
- Texture is one of the seven elements of art. What are the other six?
If we learnt anything from the wise Sheriff Cary Cactus, it’s that texture’s all around us! The seemingly empty desert is a landscape rich with sandy, furry, and pointy texture — and so are your very own surroundings. Look around you and see how many textures you can identify!
Activity 2: Touching Textures
Texture is primarily about our sense of touch. But that’s not all! Learning about texture goes hand-in-hand with learning creative new adjectives to describe these textures! So, grab your DIY tools and your thesaurus, and let’s get started!
“And if there’s one thing my upbringing as a plant covered in sharp spines, in desert filled with gritty sand and jagged rocks has taught me…it’s texture! ”
— Sheriff Cary Cactus
Set up texture samples for your kids to explore with their tiny, tiny fingers. From the most simple set-ups, (pasting small samples of different fabrics and textured papers on a piece of paper or popsicle sticks)…
…to game-like activities (placing texture samples in boxes so the children can guess what they’re touching), the possibilities are limitless! Get creative with what you have in your inventory!
Useful tips on creating your own Texture Touch Boxes:
And if you ever find yourself at a loss for words to describe touch, you can refer to this enormous list of adjectives!
Activity 3: Implied Texture
In Activity 2, we talked about texture engaging our sense of touch greatly. But, think about it, is touch the only sense that texture stimulates? Can we only tell texture from our sense of touch?
Look at the image below. Can you guess what it feels like? Just by looking at it, we’re able to easily tell that the object in the picture is soft and fluffy to the touch. That’s because, by definition, texture also refers to what a surface looks as though it might feel! This is called implied texture.
Just look at me on your screen and try to imagine the sharp prickles pokin’! But it’s not really there; it’s implied.
— Sheriff Cary Cactus
In this activity, we’ll be creating our own implied textures through pencil rubbings!
“On relatively flat surfaces, you can make a pencil rubbing so you can visualise what textures look like. We call them implied textures.” — Sheriff Cary Cactus
Steps to creating a pencil rubbing:
- Place a blank piece of paper on a surface that’s somewhat flat. Examples would be boulders, leaves, pressed flowers, table tops, floors, coins…really any surface would work well! (Recall: all surfaces have texture.)
- Colour on the paper using a pencil or a crayon, making sure to press it onto the surface.
FYI: Pencil/crayon rubbings of leaves are fascinating because there are so many differently textured leaves and plants! There are leaves that are veiny, leaves that are waxy and smooth, and even leaves that are hairy! Explore away in your backyard or your neighbourhood park!
Activity 4: Texture in Art
At the beginning of this lesson, we did tell you that texture will add an entirely new layer of awesome to your art. While there are no “right” ways to incorporate texture into your masterpieces, there are a few cool methods we’ve found to get us started.
Painting with Textured Paintbrushes
Each distinct material you use for painting is going to create a unique stroke. A cotton ball would spread paint much, much differently than a crumpled piece of paper or a feather — I’m sure you can imagine! Whatever new, silly, brilliant ideas you have for your DIY paintbrushes…try them out (and send us a picture of the results on Facebook!)
Painting on Textured Surfaces
Flip the above activity around and paint on a textured canvas instead! Use bumpy cardboard, wax paper, bubble wrap, lacy paper, and more to see how different material affect your painting!
If you’re the adventurous kind, you can paint on a textured surface — hear me out — using textured paintbrushes! To create the ultimate textured painting!
Imprinting Textures onto Play Dough
If you’re looking for something with a little less mess potential, we’ve got you covered! Creating imprints of materials you can find around the house can be really fun; what’s more, you can reuse the play dough as many times as you want to!
Imprinting Textures onto Air-Drying Clay
Air-drying clay is great for creating permanent imprints that you might want to showcase as a magnet or pendant!
We hope the sage Sheriff Cary Cactus has inspired to you to create more experimental art! Now, before you go off to explore brave new textures, share this Mini Lesson Plan with your fellow Teaching Sheriffs and Parenting Sheriffs so they can join in the fun!
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PHOTOS
LittleLives Inc.
Time for Art
Learn with Play
Play Dough and Popsicles
NurtureStore
Parenting Chaos
WikiHow
Sight Words Game
Prekinders
The Baby Bump Diaries
Stay At Home Educator
Pixabay
