Impressionist ocean paintings and ipads

This lesson successfully tackled monochromatic color mixing, interpreting light and nature, impressionism, and expressionist painting. 

I did this lesson at the very beginning of the year with seventh grade. I was just starting at my new school and wasn't sure where my students skills were at- this lesson worked really well as it gave me a chance to see what they knew and were comfortable with but gave them a more open ended way of working. Tempera paint was all we used. It would be great for 4th through 7th grade. 

We have a one-to-one Ipad program at my school. It has been incredible for my art teaching, opening up so many possibilities for my lessons. This was the first lesson I used them for.

My students went down to the waterfront with me [in the ten minutes it rained that day of course] and took photos of the ripples in the bay from the docks. (I know, I know, I'm living a dream right now...) but seriously... the students cropped the image down and translated them into paintings. I provided a slide show of Van Gogh, Monet, and Homer's paintings that all included water before they began painting.

References to Van Gogh, Monet, & Homer

Great resource and shout out!

I just realized that one of my Monet lessons was mentioned

in an AMAZING post by Delightful Children's Books last fall. 

Definitely check out this great multicultural resource that recommends many enriching and applicable children's books from around the world! Click HERE to check it out. 

Thanks SO much Amy! Your children's book site is an invaluable resource!

"Cat"tastic Portraits with Personality

My first grade students have been working with the concept of portraits quite a bit this year. 

I came across a set of postcards by a local artist this winter when I was at the BizarreBazaar:

Sarah Coyne of Egg-a-Go-Go

"Cats in Clothes" series

I loved the cats with personalities of people and it reminded me that I inherited this book from a former teacher, "Impressionist Cats" by Susan Herbert:

The kids got a kick out of the cat portraits and impressionists impressions. More importantly though, they were great examples of how portraits can show a close up of a person, a whole body, emotion, clothing, occupation, etc.!

We approached our lesson like the postcards were composed- with an oval shaped 'frame' to draw our cat portrait within and a 'wall paper' background. My goal was to have each student have a closer up portrait and also a whole body portrait- due to severe sickness traveling throughout our student body there are many who only came out with one finished piece- but I still have piles of them and they are hilarious (and genius)!

Froggies do Giverny

If you were a frog living in a pond why not live in the pond at Monet's garden in Giverny?!

My little first graders watched the video of the book Linnea in Monet's Garden

 

(it is a great resource for first and second graders!)

The backgrounds feature crayon rubbings for the pond and also the japanese bridge and rowboat featured in Monet's paintings. It is a very simplified version of my older Monet's garden lesson which I love but didn't have time for this year.

The objective was for students to create a frog that showed MOVEMENT.

I think they definitely succeeded.

One class did the frogs as a separate project which also came out cute and fun. 

They actually turned out to be like a 'frog self portrait', too funny. 

Monet's Garden at Giverny

The second graders looked at a handful of Monet's paintings of the gardens, pond, and bridge at Giverny.
After going through the book "Linnea in Monet's Garden" by Cristina Bjork we watched the movie version.  The video is great and really engaging for second graders, exactly 30 minutes.

For this project the children created bridges out of masking tape on white paper.  They used rubbing crayons over texture tiles to create a texture across the page reminiscent of the impressionist paintings.  On top of the rubbings the students added oil pastel and watercolor to create the garden.  The students were very excited to add in the details of Monet's garden - the bench, the boat, the trees and many flowers.

This one is a first grade version of the project that I think is just darling!