Third Grade: Sea Turtle

Third Grade - Sea Turtle 

 

For the second project of the year, all of the classes will be making a glow in the dark sea creature! We will be using glow in the dark paint and neon oil pastels to make our sea creatures come to life. At the end of the year art gallery, we will display all of the glow in the dark sea creatures in our very own Glow Gallery! 

(Photo courtesy of Cassie Stephens' blog)

Each grade will do a different sea creature. Third grade will be making sea turtles! 

Supplies: 

• Rectangular mixed media paper
• Neon/florescent oil pastels
• Black marker
• Pencil
• Neon tempura cakes
• Paint brushes (medium)
• Dog water dishes with sponge
• Baby wipes

    Please use the document camera in the classroom to show the step by step instructions. One art volunteer can sit at the desk at the front of the room to demonstrate the steps and guide the students through the project. Here are step by step instructions for how to draw and color the sea turtle. These will also be printed out and available in the classroom for you to lead the students through the project. 

    Try to save a few minutes at the end of class to turn the lights off in the classroom and turn on the black lights that are in the art closet (or they may already be plugged in around the room). The kids will love getting to see their art projects glow! The squeals of delight will be worth it! ;) 

1. Write your name and your teachers name on the back of the paper. 

2. Flip your paper over. With your pencil draw three small lines/dashes on your paper. We will use these as guidelines to make sure we draw our turtle nice and big! Draw one dash in the middle. Now your paper is evenly split into to halves. Now draw a dash between the left edge of your paper and the middle dash. Do the same on the right side. Now your paper is divided into four equal parts. 

3. Pick up your marker. (These instructions were done in pencil, but for time saving purposes, we will have the students draw in marker. It took up too much time to have them draw in pencil and then trace the whole drawing in marker). 

4. Find the guide line that is on the left side of your paper. Go up a few inches from that mark and draw two circles about the size of a quarter that will be your turtle's eyes.  Evenly space the circles on either side of the guide line. We will trace over the pencil lines with marker later.  

5. Draw two half circles on the top right part of the eyes. 

6. Next draw two half circles on the bottom left of the eyes. 

7. Draw two small circles below and between the eyes for the nostrils. 

8. Next draw the top of the mouth. Draw a diagonal line below the nostrils. 

9. Draw a U shape under the line for the open mouth. Leave some of the line sticking out on the left side. Draw the tongue in the mouth. 

10. Next draw a large U shape for the the bottom part of the turtle's head. 

11. Finish the turtles head by drawing a half circle. 

12. Next add some eyebrows and/or eyelashes 

13. Next draw the top of the turtle's shell. We want to take up most of the paper, so make sure you draw the curved line long enough so it passes the guide line on the right side. 

15. Now draw the bottom part of the shell. Connect the bottom part of the shell with the top part. 

16. Draw another line parallel with the bottom part of the shell. This will give our shell depth. Try to keep the same amount of distance between the two lines. 

17. Now we are going to work on the turtles flippers. Starting at the bottom of the turtles' head, draw a curved line towards the bottom of the page. 

18. Now draw a curved line back up to the body of the turtle. Leave an inch or so of space before you connect the flipper all the way to the body. 

19. Next draw another flipper so it looks like it's behind the front flipper. 

20. Now draw a back flipper. 

21. Now draw a line connecting the space that we left from front flipper to the back flipper. This is the bottom part of the shell. 

22. Now draw another back flipper peeking out from behind the first one that you drew. You can make it a little bit smaller so it looks like it's farther away. Also, make sure to add a tail! 

23. Next draw a few shapes on the shell of the turtle. You can draw circles or ovals, or you can make octagon shapes (scroll down to see the two options after they have been traced with the marker). 

24. Now pick out a few neon oil pastel colors. Color the entire turtle in with the oil pastels. You can color a bit and then spread it with your finger to blend it in if you would like. Blending it with your finger helps to smooth out the lines from the oil pastel. Wipe your finger off on a baby wipe before changing to a new color. 

Before and after smoothing with finger 

26. Next take a blue or green oil pastel and draw some waves in the background of your turtle. You can also draw seaweed or coral if you would like. 

27. Next grab a paintbrush and find the tempura cakes on your table. The tempura cakes work similarly to water colors that we are more familiar with. The tempura paint can be more vibrant depending on how much paint you have on your paintbrush. Decide on a few colors to paint the background with. Get the paintbrush wet and swirl it on the tempura cake. Then you can paint the background of your turtle. 

28. Way to go! You drew and painted a sea turtle! And your turtle will glow under the black lights! 

29. The final step is to spray the turtle with neon paint! Take your turtle to the spray station and spray it with paint. The yellow shows up best under the black lights but all of the colors are fun! Volunteers, please make sure to shake up the spray bottles of paint as the paint tends to settle on the bottom. 

30.  If time allows, it would be fun for the students to see their project glowing under the black lights! Close the shades and plug the black lights in (they are in the art supplies closet). Depending on how dark it is, they might need to take turns bringing their painting over to the black light. Or you could shine the light towards the classroom and it will illuminate their projects!