This class was all about Van Gogh so naturally I had to talk a bit about what Van Gogh the man was like and what may have drove him to paint the way he did and to supplement my blabbing they took a look at a little kid-friendly biography :) You can find it above. Last term my Doodlebugs painted Monet's Irises so today while introducing the Picassos to Van Gogh's interpretation of the same subject they took a look at both paintings side by side and we explored the differences. It was really easy to spot the characteristics of each artist's style and talk about what made their painting unique to them. The pictures they looked at are below.. Monet's is on the left and Van Gogh's on the right. This is a cool way to point out that although we may all be painting the same subject matter you can have a completely different interpretation from your neighbour and this is what makes art and for that matter... life, so rich and so beautiful! But since Van Gogh is our master artist for today we followed his example and produced our version of Irises painting in his style. This painting can really be intimidating but the Picassos took it on one piece at a time and broke it down to draw in phases. They got to really lay the paint on thick... which let's face it most kids love and also explored a technique called double-loading. Some of my Picassos really had to fight the urge to blend the colours too much and also had to focus on their brushstrokes so we could get that lively texture that Van Gogh is so famous for... but they really got into it and their pieces are coming along beautifully!
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Today the Doodlebugs listened to the story Do You Have a Hat? by Eileen Spinelli. This little book takes the children on an enjoyable journey exposing them to all sorts of people and places throughout history! The book mentions people from Abraham Lincoln to Francisco de Goya and distinguishes them by the types of hats they wore in a very rhythmic and fun way. Aunty Aurea and I were grinning from ear to ear with this one because they got into it so much that by the second page they were ALL answering the question "Do you have a hat?" with a loud "YES!" It was very cool :) After listening to the story the Doodlebugs were asked what type of hat they would like to imagine themselves in today? Maybe a fireman's hat, a doctor's hat, a pirate's hat or a crown! Then they had to draw themselves wearing the hat they chose! I offered up some options and most of my Doodlebugs opted to be princesses or princes but I did get a few police officers, Mexican girls and even a cowboy! This is a two part lesson so they focused on drawing themselves and the background today and next week we'll finish off by painting the details and then embellish the hats and stick them onto the picture :) This exercise really allowed them to infuse their own creativity into the art piece because they had to decide what clothes would go with the hat they chose as well as where they would be while wearing it! So my Mexican girls are at a fiesta hence the strings of party lights in the background, the police officer is in full uniform and my princesses have small castles in the distance! I think they all got a lot done and I can't wait to see them finished! In the first part of this lesson the Picassos created a Van Gogh inspired starry-night background and made some cool scratch paper. In part 2 they drew and painted their superheroes in full costume but you didn't get to see the full creative process because they also named their heroes and some of them even fleshed out complete stories on what their powers were and what they were about to do in the city scene! In the last part of this lesson we focused on perspective and drew in the buildings from an aerial or bird's eye view. This was a tricky thing for some of my Picassos because it involved making lots of parallel lines and making sure walls and windows were at the same angle etc. But they all did a stellar job and created cities to their very own specifications :) Last week the Doodblebugs drew and traced our amazing transforming fishy (see the first part here) and this week... you guessed it... they got down to the business of painting these fine fishes in any colour they liked! Afterwards I had them redraw their lines using black paint to make their fishes pop and I have to say these fishes are even more adorable in full colour :) , The Picassos worked on creating their super heroes in this session so our focus was drawing people in motion! To help ease some of my kiddos into this difficult task I brought my little wooden mannequin man so they could take turns putting him in different poses and sketching the limbs. I also made some nifty movable figure templates that they could use to get the proportions right. I like to think of these movable figures as training wheels... it really gets them thinking about how limbs are connected by joints and how arms and legs look when you move them this way and that. So some Picassos drew free-handed, some looked at the mannequin for guidance on how to draw the angles and some used my movable figures. They all then drew the costumes over the basic body structure and erased the parts that would be covered by clothes! Take a look at their creative compositions! Next week they will scratch out the buildings so we'll focus on perspective in the next part of this gargantuan art piece. Tuesday Picassos are on top and Saturday Picassos are underneath :) For the first part of this lesson see here, or to see how they finished them up move along to Part 3! Today the Doodlebugs and I did a little magic in the art room! Well it may as well have been magic anyway... the looks on their faces when I showed them how my innocent little fishy drawing was going to turn into a ferocious predator was absolutely priceless! They couldn't wait to see how they were going to draw this one and of course this one is not just a great painting... it's also loads of fun! They were all holding their drawings and making them go "nom nom"... in case you don't speak fishy that's the noise they make when they are eating. lol These fishes are drawn first in pencil and then traced in Sharpie and they'll be painted next week. This exercise really worked on those motor skills... taking a line for a walk all the way from the top of the page down to the bottom is serious stuff for a 5 year old! So some of their lines are a little wobbly but those shaky lines are evidence of their little hands hard at work :) Enough of my babbling... take a look at them in action! To see how they finished these adorable fishes check out Part 2 of this lesson. It's a new year and a new term and so I decided why not give these Picassos are running start... or rather a flying one! They all had to imagine themselves as super heroes... a feat that was surprisingly easy for these kiddos... hmmm. But before they got to decide on super powers or design costumes they had to create the background for their super hero selves to land on and survey! This lesson is gigantic in scope because it covers my 'fave' thing to say 'perspective', but it also touches on colour theory, introduces a cool technique called scratch art AND gives the Picassos some exposure to figure drawing. Phew! Up top is a sample of what the finished piece might look like :) So for Part 1 we painted our evening or night sky using watercolours and oil pastels in either a warm or cool colour pallete... oh yeah here's another technique.. wax resist! I suggested we take our inspiration from the huge Starry Night painting in the art room and give our sky a Van Gogh feel. Tuesday kiddos are on top and Saturday Picassos are underneath.. take a peek! Next they got started making the scratch art paper that we will use for our city sky scrapers... because where else is a Super Hero going to perch but up high on top of some buildings :) I thought reading this adorable little book about a cat who was reluctant to go to school would be a nice way to start off the term for my precious Doodlebugs! After reading about Splat's adventures we got down to painting him and adding nifty little details that we cut out and stuck to our picture. Take a look :) |
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Be a fly on the wall in our art room! Take a look at what we do, how we do it and the smiles that I get to see week after week :) Archives
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