2010: Art Project 1--Van Gogh

My goal with Art Journal Wednesday is to expose the girls to different artists and art styles. Of course, my art history background is coming out here. And I try not to make things too complicated or go into too much on the artist or anything. But I think it's fun to show them an artist's work and point out what is interesting about it. I usually just tell them the artist name and we talk about what is going on in the painting, the colors, how the artist made it, etc.

The first artist I chose was Vincent van Gogh. I showed the girls pictures on the computer of his work. We focused on Starry Starry Night.
We talked about how van Gogh used short strokes (with me demonstrating on a piece of paper) to fill in shapes, or made a shape such as the moon and then made short strokes around it to emphasize it. We also talked about how he used all different shades of blue in the sky and around the moon and stars. And talked about how the swirls could be the wind in the sky.

I asked the girls to make the basic outline: the moon, the houses, the mountains, the bush/tree in the foreground. And then they used different colors to make the rest of it. Ella really liked this technique. And she did her entire picture all on her own. I guided Lily quite a bit, but she enjoyed it too.

Above is Lily's Starry Night. She was particularly proud of her heart-shaped house.

And here's Ella's. Not much to say other than she did a great job.
And I think it turned out very cool.