Art - Black & White Photo and Ink Wash Painting

Transdisciplinary Theme: Where we are in place and time

Central Idea: There are similarities and differences between the way people lived long ago and the way people live today.
Lines of Inquiry:

• There are similarities and differences between past and present.
• inventions have been made that impact the things we do.
• Changes in daily life.

This video was shown to the children as an inspiration of the art activity today. "What do you notice in this video? What colour do you see on those photos ?" I asked. "Black ,white and gray!" the children answered. As well, they noticed there were different kinds of gray colour in the pictures. 

Here we started to explore how the black-and-white photos were different from the coloured photos we have nowadays. The children wondered why the photos had to be printed in a darkroom and why people wash the photos with, while we watched the video. "That was a lot of work to print a photo in the olden days!" both the children and teachers thought. 

Ink Wash Painting, an East Asia type of brush painting, also uses black and different shades of gray to present a picture. Connecting with black-and-white photos, we simply used black paint and water to create shades from deep black to silvery gray.
The children enjoyed creating pictures with only black, white and shades of gray. 

After this art activity, the children became more aware of the change of colour using. In the afternoon some children noticed how there were books with colourful pictures and books with only black-and-white pictures.