Warm/Cool Hands, 3rd Grade

I got this idea from Art Projects for Kids a while back. I did make some significant changes. She uses a template, and we did it all from scratch and used different shapes in the background. You also get the chance to touch on warm and cool colors again, which is always great.



1. Start with 9x12 white piece of paper

2. Draw either a circle, triangle or square in the upper right part of the paper (not all the way to the corner)

3. Draw echo lines or contour lines that follow the shape all the way to the edges of the paper.

3. Lay your hand down and trace it (I suggest getting your hand near the original shape)

4. Outline everything in sharpie

5. Students decide if the hand will be warm or cool, and the background will be opposite color scheme. Then, begin painting with tempera. Keep the same pattern. Yellow/Red/Orange...repeat. Everyone can have their own pattern of doing color, doesn't matter : )

6. Once dry, a re-outline is good to do. We ran out of time, so we didn't do this in the photos above.

My students LOVED this. Many of them voted this as favorite project of the year...which surprised me some, but...hey! I think they turned out nice.