Savannah in Monet's Garden

(A Variety of Monet Gardens by Children's Book Art Class)

My Children's Book Art Camp will be taking a look at Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Bjork and Lena Anderson. It's a wonderful book that combines illustrations with Monet's actual paintings. It follows the little girl, Linnea as she learns about the life of Monet as she visits his pink house in Giverny and stands on the Japanese bridge in Giverny that he painted so many times. To create our Impressionist pieces, we will be adding layers of paint and experimenting with a variety of brush strokes. The children will first create a watercolor wash of the water and sky. I always encourage them to use a couple colors to add dimension rather than just a solid blue sky for example. While the paint is still wet we will as our colors for the lily pads and water reflections as well as all the lush folliage in the backgroud. They will double and triple load their brushes in blues, greens and yellow to mimic the Impressionistic effect. The bridges are cut from large pieces of construction paper (glue together 3 curved shapes and 4 small rectangles) and can be painted over lightly as well to help them blend into the painting. I will take a picture of each child waving (great idea Savannah) and cut them out. They are slipped behind their bridge and glued to the piece.

Voila, each child can be a part of their own Impressionist landscape.