Monet's Waterlilies

http://artasticartists.blogspot.com/2011/03/going-greek-scratch-into-history-with.html

4th graders are finishing their Monet unit and learning about the man who started Impression! We made our own Monet-esque painting and 3-D waterlilies. Click on the link above to take you to the indepth post!

Claude Monet: Discovering Impressionism!

4th graders learned all about the artist who started the Impressionist art movement, Claude Monet! We learned about who he was as an artist and his signature 'dabbing' brushstroke not focusing on detail but capturing a moment in time. Stand far away and see it all come together as your eye does the mixing of the colors to form the image! On one side of the worksheet had a summary of the artist and a picture of one of his many waterlily studies. On the other side, there is a copy of his 'waterlilies' to fill in with paint. Student were given Q-tips to create the 'dabs' of paint to fill in and recreate his masterpiece- concentrating on making the same type of brushstrokes as Monet.



I instructed students to not 'paint like a paint brush'. We're also not doing perfect dots like that of Seurat. Simply, just dabs of paint. Then we put them into the drying rack. This is a great way to do it because  you have the information of the famous artist and what we learned in class on the other side so parents can see what we're working on with a great explanation!



Making an 'Impression(ism)' with Mini Masterpieces

4th grade is summing up all of their knowledge of different Impressionist artists that we've studied. We've learned about the history of Impressionists Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, and Edgar Degas and more importantly each of their distinct brushstrokes and masterpieces! It was almost like completing a creative test!



I made a simplified example of a famous work from each of the famous Impressionists that we studied. Then set up table stations with a variety of materials to make the type of brushstroke for each masterpiece.





 For  Van Gogh, we learned that his signature style of brushstroke or way he applied his thick paint, was more of long, dashed line. We demonstrated this on his famous 'Starry Night' with colored pencils.

Degas was known for a sketchy, back and fourth gestural mark when drawing with his pastels and observational studies of ballerinas. He didn't blend pastels with his finger, more so with the drawing tip of the pastels to create textural marks. Students used pastel chalk to mimic his style.

Monet used dabs of layed paint and color. Here is some of his famous' Waterlilies'. We did this with brushes and paint for the Monet station.

Seurat used tiny dots of layered color for his larger than life painting 'Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jette'. We thought fine tip markers would work very well for Seurat's 'pointillism' style.

Next time after when they have dried , cut them out and glue a square of posterboard or cardstock behind each of the mini masterpieces to give them some weight so they're not flimsy. Then I showed students how to make a mini easel so they can interchange their mini masterpieces for display! I talked about safety with glue guns and how to make the easel. I emphasized that there needs to be a lean backwards (not forwards) so that the mini masterpiece won't fall off.

Seurat station for pointlism

Degas station with chalk pastel

Busy creating masterpieces and learning about brushstrokes!



Mimicking Monet!

4th grade has moved onto art history to Impressionism and on from the Renaissance in art history! We talked about some of the main, big names of Impressionism such as Seurat, Van Gogh, Degas and one of Impressionism's founders, the one, the only Claude Monet! Did you know I love Monet's art so much I named my cat (she's a girl) Claudia Monet!? We watched Getting To Know the World's Greatest Artists video on Claude Monet. We learned he is famous for his lily pads in water, scenic views, garden scenes, and haystack studies that change with the weather and time of day. But, most importantly, Claude Monet is famous for his style of applying paint in his brush strokes. He used many tiny dabs of layered colors of paint to form his pictures. Your eyes does the mixing of the colors when you stand far away from it, because up close it just looks like a mess of dabs of paint!  

 We used some of Monet's most famous works as our muse when we mimicked his brushstrokes. We drew a quick outlined sketch with pencil and I had paint at different tables with Q-tips to make the 'dabs' of paint. We also talked about 'layering' the dabs of paint and making sure to throw away or use the other side of the Q tip to make sure you don't muddy up the clean paint stations. We just got started but I can't wait to see the final project!



Hangin' with Vincent (Van Gogh)! 5th grade explores his Impressionist masterpieces & touches on art careers

5th grade is currently studying Vincent Van Gogh! First we watched "Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists" Vincent Van Gogh to really understand where the artist began from young to old. It also explores some of his famous masterpieces such as his "Sunflowers" and studies of his bedroom ("Bed Room at Arles", 1889).
We first started looking at Van Gogh's style in his "Sunflowers". We looked at how Van Gogh has a distinct style of layered, thickly applied, long dashed brushstrokes. 5th grade then took a stab at it by first drawing a vase design of their choice, a horizon line, such as the table it's sitting on (since it's not magically leviating), and concentrated on mimicking & understanding the drying petals of the bouquet and then using oil pastel (contains wax) to mimic the dashed brushstrokes. Then we turned it into a watercolor/ oil pastel resist. The class also really started to grasp the correct way to use watercolor with wet on wet and mixing techniques with their brush!  Here are some more examples from class.

Then after completing that, we started to look at Van Gogh's 3 studies (only 1 is found in the United States, and that is "Bedroom at Arles" and found at the Chicago Art Institute) of his bedrooms. We looked and pointed out the different between the 3. Then I asked if the students had heard of the art based career "interior designer". I then explained that interior designers help pick out how a room is designed from anything from the colors of the walls, to the kind of chairs in the room, to how to cordinate furniture and combinations of bedding and pillows. We also learned what warm & cool colors were, how they can psychologically make us think that we feel warmer or cooler than we are, and also change out mood. Interior designers take this into account when planning for a client. 5th grade's project was to redesign Van Gogh's bedroom with color, pattern, and later make things 3-D. We made things 3-D by taking another photo copy of the same bedroom, and colored in items, cut then out, then glued them down with a piece of foamcore, to make it raised on the page(in mine it's' the chair, the bedpost, and a picture frame). We then added other 3-D elements like felt for curtains, a bedspread, or even a carpet.

student work



student work