Art Class - Georgia O'Keeffe

Art Class Week 3 was Georgia O'Keeffe.  While she is most famous for her flowers, the Mommy teacher this week taught us she really a Nature Painter. She painted all sorts of images from nature and would take something small, like a pebble, and use that one image as the entire focal point for her art - making the pebble fill the canvas and become larger than life.

Black Rock and Blue sky

From the Lake I

The teacher had the kids do two projects - both creating something from nature.

Project 1 - Oil Pastels - Free draw something from nature - Turbo titled his piece "Multi-Colored". He said that nature had many colors and so he drew "Multi-Colored"

Project 2 - Watercolors - Free paint something from nature. I think Turbo was just painting at random for this art, because when asked he said he didn't know.  Being the (bad!) helpful mom, I suggested it look like a Lake (I try to NEVER do this! ugh!). Of course he said "Yes, that's it, it's a black, purple and greenish Lake"

We're also going to do a few other O'Keeffe art projects since I have really grown to like her work - specifically the flower paintings.  

Art Class - Paul Klee

For our Second Weekly Art class, Turbo and I were both very sick, so I was unable to teach my lesson plan BOO! Thankfully the coordinator, Rachel, filled in and both hosted and taught my plan (THANKS!).   Turbo and I still worked in the art activities into our day. It was a nice break from sleeping and watching movies!

I created a laminated page of Klee art for the kids to reference during and after class. We talked about how Paul Klee paints in a simple, child-like way with Bright Colors, Geometric Shapes, Faces, Animals and sometimes funny aspects to his work. Turbo looked at the art and told me what he saw, what he liked and what he found funny.  He liked the faces, especially the cat face. He saw lots of colors and animals.  He thought it was funny the cat face had a bird in it and that the bird picture had one upside-down.  I loved that he really looked at the art and evaluated it.  I also noticed he paid little attention to the art work without faces, animals and such.

Project 1 - Crayon Relief - Color with brightly colored crayons then wash over the drawing with black watercolors.

Project 2 - Stencil Shapes - I printed a page with various shapes, laminated it and cut them out with an exact-o knife.  We had both Positive Image and Negative Image stencils.  This was Turbo's first time with stencils of any kind. Using a scrap paper, I used a square stencil to demonstrate the technique for Turbo.  Then I placed the square on his paper for him to try. That was the extent of my 'help'. After doing the square, he noticed the triangle and immediately thought of houses and decided to make this art! He did the entire project on his own - 3 houses with chimneys and smoke and 1 sun.  I will be framing this for sure!

Project 3 - Texture - Paul Klee painted with various mediums and would often add texture aspects to his work.  We mixed 2 parts basic shaving cream to 1 part white glue and added some paint for color.  Turbo gooped it onto his paper, spread it around, mixed the colors and used forks, sticks and other items to add texture to his art. It dries puffy, so the final piece has some texture also. Very cool!

Art Class - Piet Mondrian

A few weeks ago we started an art class. I'm so grateful to the Mom with the idea and who coordinated schedules to get 6 kids (4 Moms) together once a week.  Our group is 3 & 4 year olds, so we decided to focus on a different artist each week. We start with a circle time (song, discussion of the art/artist, and activity or story), then the kids do 3 projects in the style of that artist. Each Mom will teach twice and we'll do a field trip at the end. 

We've been having a terrific time!  I know little about famous artists, I'm not very 'artsy' and it had been awhile since we'd done art - much less done it regularly.  Our class has really been an inspiration for both of us.  Turbo has been asking to do some kind of art every day since the start of class. It's awesome to hear him create something and say - this is like Paul Klee, Mondrian or O'Keeffe.  I've been learning about various artist and expanding the tools and mediums we use to create art!

Easy, Fun and Inspirational.  Here's a sample of Piet Mondrian's art. 

Project 1: Glue bright colored geometric shapes and black lines onto paper

Project 2:  Chalk on Black Cardstock - the kids put masking tape in various locations on black cardstock. Then colored with Chalk. Removing the tape, left uncolored black space between the colored areas.

Project 3: Paint on White Paper - similar to above, the kids placed masking tape in random locations on Paint Paper. Then painted with various colors. Removing the tape left crisp white lines between the painted areas.