E. A. Seguy

 Sonja, 8

Sadie, 7

Jenna, 10

 Cora, 5 (Entering Kindergarten in September - Gorgeous!)

 Tristyn, 8

 Lacie, 8

 Butch, 6

When I told the two groups of students in my "Creatures, Great and Small" classes that we'd be drawing flies for our first project, the collective sigh of disappointment was audible. ;) "Trust me, you can make these beautiful." They definitely proved me right! This project was inspired by the beautifully rendered insects and gorgeous patterns of French turn of the century artist, Eugene Alain Seguy. I am a Huge admirer of his art. So I thought it would be interesting to combine both of these elements into one piece.

We started by drawing a horse fly (disgusting I know, but it made for a bold drawing). The children shaded their drawings with charcoal. As one of my blogger friends put it, "charcoal achieves drama.like nothing else." I copied these in my printer twice to give us three cut flies for our pieces.The backgrounds were created with liquid watercolors, followed by styrofoam carved stamps using acrylics and finished with oil pastel details. I told the children to pretend that they were wallpaper or fabric designers.The last step was to arrange the flies in a eye pleasing pattern. I love the contrast of the charcoal bugs against the brightly colored backgrounds. Well done kids!