Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Monet's Water Lilies

This week we are studying famous artists. Yesterday we talked about Claude Monet. I showed the kids several of his lily pond paintings and then we recreated one of his paintings with the bridge.
I was just planning on having the kids paint the bridge along with everything else, but then as I was searching for other ideas, I saw how they used tape for the bridge at The Crafty Classroom. Genius! So first I made bridges on the paper using masking tape. (I also cut mine in half so it would be thinner.)
Then I set out the paint. We had two shades of green, two shades of blue, and white and pink.
The kids used a dabbing technique to paint their pictures.
First they covered their entire paper with greens and blues.
Then they dabbed on some white,
and some pink.
Unfortunately the pink dried very dark. I did go over it with a second coat, but it didn't make a difference. After they were completely dry (the next day) I very carefully took off the tape. We used construction paper and the tape kind of took a small layer off, so it was a little "fuzzy." And it looked so white! So I let the kids color their bridges with crayons. That covered up the fuzziness a bit.



I signed the paintings with the child's first name and then used Monet as their last name. I love how they turned out!

 
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8 comments:

Holli said...

Love this! Found you via I Can Teach My Child. We had similar posts this week...will keep this in mind as my boys get older as we are just starting with our painting experience. But I love the idea of studying different artists and painting in their style! Great site!

Nancy said...

Wow, you have some great Monet painters in your class. They all turned out so nice! I like the taped bridge idea, that way they can paint the whole page and not worry about painting over the bridge.

Beth (www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com) said...

This is beautiful! I LOVE Monet!! My son & I did a tissue paper water lilies art last year and it is one of our all time favorites proudly hung in our dinning room =-) Your kiddos art is wonderful! You must be so proud!
Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Have a great week =-)
Beth

Jae said...

I love this idea! This is just in time as we're doing Monet in a few days :) By the way, found your site through TGIFriday Linky

Carrie said...

Oh, how beautiful!! Monet is one of my favorite artists. We will definitely have to give this a try. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!

Rebecca from Here come the girls said...

I love this painting and your interpretation is gorgeous.

I've featured this on the Sunday Showcase: http://www.herecomethegirlsblog.com/2012/09/02/the-sunday-showcase-art-activities.html

Katieface89 said...

Going to try this with my Year 4 class tomorrow - I reckon it will easily be the best part of their day! Thank you for inspiring an exhausted teacher on a Thursday evening!

Unknown said...

My kids adored it! It was magic!!!Tank you for the idea.