Rainbow Fish

My kindergarteners kicked off our children's book art class with their version of Rainbow Fish. This is a wonderful story about a fish who finds the true meaning of giving when he gives out his beautiful rainbow scales to others, keeping just one for himself. To create their own inspirations my 5 year olds followed a general direction for drawing the fish. I truly love to see the wide range of fish they create just as I tell them there exist in the sea. These drawings are finished in oil pastels. I encourage the children to press hard with their oil pastels as it makes the colors rich and beautiful. They can choose to add sand, sea weed, shells or whatever they would like to create an ocean atmosphere. Next they paint a watercolor wash of blues, greens and purples for their ocean. While the paint is wet they sprinkle salt "like fairy dust" across the ocean water. This creates a wonderful stippling effect as the salt absorbs the water. The kids loves this part! To make these Rainbow Fish complete, the children choose one scale to be glitterized with a squeeze of silver glitter glue. The first 3 fantastic pieces were done by my kindergarteners and the last by my 8 year old, Savannah.

3D Cubist Portraits

My Mini Modern Artists will be leaving behind the world of Impressionism and jumping in our time machine and speeding ahead about 30 years to focus on one of the most pivotal art movements of the early 20th century, Cubism. I have done a number of Cubist style art lessons in the past. I wanted to switch things up a bit this time. I will review that Cubist artists like Picasso wanted to take apart an object (or face) and put it together in a new way, often showing several angles all at once. After creating an oval face shape on poster board the children will divide the face with a profile line down the middle. They will create a hard edge, simple hair style. Next they will add features like eyes, mouth and eye brows. I will review how to create a side view of an eye and mouth. They will be encouraged to put these features on the face in a unique way. Using a ruler they will divide the face in a couple spots. When they are happy with their design they can go over it in permanent marker. Using markers and oil pastel they will add color, pattern and texture to their shapes. This face is then cut out and glued to a background of foam core that has been painted in a simple graphic way. Small pieces of foam core will elevate their face onto their background, creating a 3D effect.

Eric Carle Style Mallard Duck Collage

The wonderful book Eric Carle's Animals Animals is full of dozens of his fantastic collage art, from ant to yak. I had a hard time picking one of these animals to choose for my 2 groups of Kindergarteners. I finally decided to do a version of his mallard duck. The children will first work on the background by painting the water with wavy lines of blue and green. They will use the end of their brush to make squiggle shapes in the water. To create the colorful food at the bottom of the pond the will make dots of red, orange, yellow and purple. For the last background touch, a splattering of blue watercolor at the top. To create the duck, paint brown construction paper with brown, black and orange, again using the back of the paintbrush to create his trademark squiggles. The green head was created by painting a small piece of black construction paper. The beak, feet and sun were done by adding smearing streaks in yellow and orange to yellow construction paper. After these papers are dry they will cut out simple shapes on their own or use templates to create the body, wing, head, beak and feet. They can decide whether they would like their duck paddling through the water or diving down for some food.

Starry Night Inspirations

These Starry Night inspirations were done with tempera paint and oil pastel

Monet's Japanese Bridge

In addition to my Children's Book Art classes, this session I am offering 2 Mini Modern Artist classes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. We will be creating our own works of art inspired by some of the great artists of the late 19th and 20th centuries. While Monet may not be considered a "modern" artist I wanted to start with Impressionism before focusing on Cubism or Abstract art. I will discuss how the Impressionists were radicals of their time, leaving their art studios to paint in the open air with visible brushstrokes.

I found the basic idea for these bridges on Artsonia. Starting with a large sheet of colored construction paper, fold in half. Using the side of an oil pastel, shade around the paper. I will have them use several colors different from their paper. Next paint trees, leaves, bushes and flowers above the fold line. After each application of paint, fold the paper in half and rub to create the reflection of folliage in the water. A simple bridge shape can be then painted and folded for the last print. For the final step, paint lily pads and lilies on the bottom half of the paper. I think this project is accessible for my younger children, but still focuses on the idea of reflection and the visible brush strokes of Monet's bridge which he painted many times from 1899-1923.

The Colors of Us

Karen Katz created the wonderful children's book, "The Colors of Us." It is the story of a girl, Lena, who sees herself as the color of cinnamon and how her artist mother, teaches her that there is no black and white. She shows her the many shades of skin colors: from light cocoa, to peach, from chocolate brown to butterscotch and beyond. Rather than pretending to be color blind, this book embraces the beautiful array of "colors of us."

This book is particularly meaningful to me because my family reflects a spectrum of beautiful colors. I purposefully purchased this book several years ago with that in mind. My daughter often refers to her skin color as cinnamon. She considers me to be "peachy-vanilla." My husband is "milk chocolate." This book reinforces the beauty and diversity of all people.

For my art classes my kindergartenders created their own Katz's folk art inspired collages with a layer of painted background, scrapbook paper cityscapes, and construction paper cut people with added details in oil pastel. The children really had fun with this project, bringing their own personality and added touches to their people.

Harry By The Sea

Another one of my favorite books from childhood is "Harry By The Sea" from the Harry the Dirty Dog series. I think it's timeless success lies with its simplicity(in story and illustrations). The pictures have only 2 colors (and black): a pale olive green and light yelow orange which the children will paint with watercolor.

On a separate paper, I will give a directed line drawing lesson to create Harry. While it may seem simple, I'm sure I will receive a wide range of versions. This is when I hope I can convince them that that is where the beauty lies in art. I always say how boring it would be to have everyone's "dog" or "flower" or whatever look the same. Bring on the misshapen heads and swollen bodies - I love it! These simple pencil drawings will be drawn over with charcoal and smudged to create the same effect as artist, Margaret Bloy Graham. They can then cut them out and glue them to their watercolor backgrounds. Harry's shadow and ocean currents will be done in charcoal as well.