Buccoo Reef Prints

One of the great things about art is you can literally use anything to get creative! Today the Picassos painted an underwater ocean scene. But to add another dimension to our art we talked about the Buccoo Reef in Tobago and how much of our coral has been destroyed by a combination of pollution and mistreatment of the reef by tour operators. They looked at pictures and we got down to our art for the day. 

I gave them very little direction. I simply put out some ocean colours in tempera and oil pastels and we talked for a few minutes about what we might see under the deep blue ocean. The only rule was not to paint any fish... we have a special plan for adding fish at the end.

When the underwater scene was done to their satisfaction I handed out styrofoam trays for them to draw a fish from a very simple one to that was as detailed as they cared to get. So they drew BIG fish, and tiny fish and I even got some eels!

When I started saving these trays I really didn't have a plan for them but lucky for us we have them today! My darling hubby has started asking "are we saving this?" before he throws any earthly thing away! LOL.. But I digress as usual... They cut the shapes out, painted them with black tempera and simply pressed them onto the ocean background, creating a school of fish silhouettes!

This was so much fun and the kiddos really took charge of their artwork.