Imagine

On our visit to the museum we saw some amazing sculptures. It sparked a conversation about how sculptures are different from paintings. Paintings are,"flat" (2-dimensional) and sculptures are 3-dimensional like, "statues". We set out clay, wire and beads and let the children make their very own sculptures. We used clay as the base,"so it doesn't fall down". They learned quickly that too many beads made it fall over, "because it's too heavy". Look for them displayed in our upcoming art show.

This has been a great summer filled with friends, art and sunny water days. The children loved making boats out of toothpicks and wine corks. They really worked hard figuring out how to make their boats float. They also made a cool water wall using funnels,PVC pipe and 2 liter soda bottles. We were excited to see the children come up with this idea on their own and we supplied them with more materials for our next water day. They really figured out how to make it work.  It was neat to watch how they worked together.

We introduced the painter Georgia O'Keeffe.  We looked at some of her paintings of flowers,bones and desert skies. We noticed that many of her flower paintings were painted from an "up close" perspective. We set out fresh flowers from our garden and magnifying glasses so we might gain some Georgia O'Keeffe inspiration. We set up a provocation with pictures of her flower paintings and a variety of mediums;watercolors in squeeze bottles,tempera paint,glue and a mixture of colored sand and glue. The children's paintings were colorful and bright just like the ones we saw by Georgia O'Keeffe.

We read a book about another famous artist named Jackson Pollock. His art is much different than anything we have seen so far this summer. His art doesn't look like a person,a city or any "thing" at all. His style of drip painting was unique. The children enjoyed trying it out.  We found it to be messy but fun. We imagined what it would be like to paint a huge canvas with this technique.

We gave the children big pieces of paper and asked them to draw themselves. We also had them draw their friend.  We talked about drawing our friends whole body rather than just their face. The children modeled for each other. They drew and colored some amazing giant portraits.

Exploring mediums is a focus for us this summer. We set up a mixed media portrait provocation. We used crayon,watercolor paint and chalk on white paper. The children really seemed to enjoy mixing the various  mediums to obtain different effects. Their portraits turned out great!

We asked the question, What is a Portrait? "A picture of a person". How do we make a Portrait? "We draw it, we paint it, we make it". We took photos of the children holding frames. "A portrait can be me!" We set up a portrait provocation using frames,natural material and mirrors. We talked about our faces,looked in the mirror and made awesome compositions of our faces. We were in the frame just like in the photograph! The children drew their composition. Throughout  the week the children were given multiple opportunities to draw their portrait and create a composition allowing them to revisit their previous work or create new work based on new understandings.