O'Keeffe, Monet and Sculptures

After a short art walk through our hallway and classroom galleries, the girls wanted to know if we were ever going to learn about a female artist.  Good question!  The very next artist we introduced was Georgia O'Keeffe.   Her beautiful flowers were a great inspiration to our own group of artists!  Looking through a magnifying glass the children could see all the different colors each flower contained.  We also talked about warm and cool colors and how using them evokes different emotions.  Soon, paint brushes were flying.  Our gallery of flowers is gorgeous!

Monet and the impressionists were famous for using short brush strokes and blending colors to create their paintings.  We've shown the children a few techniques to try, and their Monet inspired trees are striking.  You can see how Sammie and Laura left room between their dark brown brush strokes so that another shade of brown could be placed in the middle.  Sophia is using many shades of pink to make flowers, leaving space between her strokes so that the pinks will blend together as she fits in new colors.  Lukas is painting the grass, pulling up from the bottom of his paper to combine the greens.  We hope to see the children use the many techniques we have learned in future easel experiences!

Using different sized wood pieces, the children created their own free standing sculpture. Susan suggested looking at the sculpture from different angles to make sure the pieces were where they wanted them to be. Some kids got down on their knees to see the sculpture from underneath, while others very slowly rotated the wood to get a different perspective. Once the children were satisfied with their wood placement, they could glue down the pieces. This was easier said than done since the kids had to really think about how to balance some of those bigger pieces.


Look for these creative sculptures to be part of our art show on February!