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.

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.