Art Lesson - Water Lilies inspired by Claude Monet

Today we painted with oil pastels.  I talked to the children about Claude Monet and his garden in Giverny, France.

We spoke about water reflecting things around it because it has no color.  I told the children to pretend that they were small frogs sitting on top of a lily pad.  What kinds of plants and flowers could be seen around a small pond?

Then, when we paint or draw water, we are really drawing the reflection of the things around it... the sky, flowers, plants, and trees in the garden.

We took colored pencils first to draw the lily pad and flower shapes.  Then we colored our pond with oil pastels on Bristol paper. At the end, we used cotton swabs dipped in baby oil to smear and blend the colors.  This gives the art a painterly look, like Monet's oil paintings.  The baby oil dissolves and blends the colors beautifully.

Art Lesson - Collage inspired by Alma Thomas

Alma Thomas was an African American Expressionist painter from the Washington Color School.  Her brightly colored daubs of oil paint really appealed to the kids.  We discussed the emotional effect of her work and spoke about the colors of the rainbow and how each color   makes you feel.  Starting at the center with a red circle, the kids followed the rainbow to the edges of the page.  We also spoke about how her work resembles mosaic art.

Fred Spools Cross Stitch Market

I'm happy to announce that I've recently teamed up with Fred Spools in the U.K. to offer cross stitch kits for some of my paintings.  We just started offering them this week and I'm excited to see what the finished products look like once people start stitching!

Here is "In Full Bloom" available exclusively on etsy from Fred Spools.

Art Lesson - Blue Dog inspired by George Rodrigue

This week my K-5 art classes tackled the "blue dog" by George Rodrigue.  The children used black crayons to draw the dog and orange crayons to draw the flowers on the grass.  Then they used tempera paint to fill in.  We spoke about warm and cool colors.  We also practiced color mixing with primary colors.  I gave the children blue, yellow, and red paint and they had to mix the orange and green.  I think the expressions on the faces are just are terrific.

Art Lesson - Neon Tigers inspired by Ron Burns

Inspired by the bold animal paintings of Ron Burns, my K-5th grade art classes used oil pastels on black construction paper to make these bold neon tigers.  Grrrrr!

Art Lesson - Metallic Trees inspired by Gustav Klimt

This week my K-5 art classes looked at the gilded paintings of Klimt.  We used black card stock metallic markers to draw trees inspired by his "Tree of Life" painting.  Concentrating on swirls and geometric shapes, the children created patterns on the ground and in the trees.  Some of them used real gold leaf for a finishing touch.

Art Lesson - Torn Paper Landscapes

Sometimes it's fun to just rip paper.  For this project, we used construction paper and glue sticks.  That's it!  Thinking about layering and landscapes, my K-5th grade students made torn paper hills and flowers.

Art Lesson - Valentine's Day Flower Collage

Construction paper valentines showed my K-5th grade classes could practice cutting.  Older children traced their hands.  Younger ones were given hands that were already cut out.  One hand is holding flowers and the other is holding a heart valentine with a message.  Sweet.

Art Lesson - Egyptian Pharaohs

I turned the kids into Pharaohs!  Took photos of them and printed them out.  Cut and pasted onto brown paper.  Then, I had the kids use markers to draw clothing and color with oil pastels.  We talked about geometric shapes like pyramids and triangles.  And we talked about patterns like stripes that are found in textiles.  We also talked about Egyptian paintings on papyrus.  Aren't they great?