2011: Art Project 2--Sunflowers

For our project today, I wanted to focus on Van Gogh's Sunflowers. But I thought it would be fun to show the girls some sunflowers by other artists as well:

Paul Gauguin (but now I can't find my source for this image.)

Large Sunflowers, Emil Nolde, 1928

Girl with Sunflowers, Deigo Rivera

Sunflowers, Van Gogh, 1888

After showing the girls famous artists' versions of sunflowers, I showed them a link to an art blog where 2nd graders made Van Gogh-inspired sunflowers. They particularly liked this one:
I also had a couple books from the library that they could look at:
Art Profiles for Kids: Vincent Van Gogh by Jim Whiting and DK Eyewitness Books: Van Gogh by Bruce Bernard. Both have plenty of great information on Van Gogh, show all his major works, and give a timeline of this life. Very good for a bit older kids who may be interested in learning more about a particular artist.


I didn't really give the girls much direction today, other than I wanted them to recreate Van Gogh's Sunflowers. We talked again about using different shades of one color. We talked about spatial issues on the page. Where to draw a horizon line and how to make everything "fit" on the page; ie: don't draw it too small or too big. Draw everything so it fits nicely on the page.



Boy, am I glad I purchased those watercolor pencils! They are still a bit hit. Lily especially LOVES them!


I have to say, Lily did a really FANTASTIC job! She listened to what the project was supposed to be and followed that. She used all pencil and watercolor pencil to make her creation. She did a nice job of trying to draw the sunflower petals more pointy as they should be. Ella wanted to go her own way a bit more and wasn't excited about really making her flowers look specifically like sunflowers. But you know, it's her creation, if she wants to do her own thing, I try to let her do that. :-) She used colored pencils, markers, and slick sticks.