Today the Doodlebugs painted a butterfly... but this is Arty Pants Studio, where smarty pants thrive and flourish. So to foster the inquisitive nature of our little ones I showed them this video on how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. All my Doodlebugs may not be able to remember the term exoskeleton at the end of this, but I think there's value in exposing them to the proper names for things and making them aware of processes so when they encounter them again and again, they will say... oh yeah, that sounds familiar until one day they just know :) We talked about the parts of the butterfly and I had some pictures of butterflies printed out for inspiration. And of course, any time you have a group of eager 5 and 6 year olds waiting for paint some strategy is required... so we played a little game I call The Smartest Artist. Smartest Artist Questions for the day... 1) How many stages does it take for a caterpillar to turn into a butterfly? 2) What do butterflies eat? 3) How do butterflies taste food? We also talked about symmetry, I SUGGESTED that the wings be the same on both sides, but who can blame a 5 year old for thinking this is just too boring and restrictive? So they drew their butterflies, drew in patterns and painted them in using tiny brushes to help them stay in the lines.
0 Comments
It's almost the end of the term, so I decided to give the Doodlebugs a project that would get keep their creative juices flowing and let them have a bit of stress relief as well. These little 5 and 6 year olds have so much work to do at school I wanted to give them an outlet for all the rules and revision.
I pulled out the rollers and scrapers and really big brushes and told them today the only rule is to use one colour at a time and be creative! I showed them what I meant by creating patterns with the tools in front of them and they were ready to start! We used coloured construction paper and tempera paints so the background is already one colour and they added texture and colour with the paint. Even though our painted papers are certainly gorgeous and they can be considered art in and of themselves... they are actually going to be used in other projects like collages and Eric Carle syled art, so the Doodlebugs don't get to keep these pieces. I'm holding on to them until we need them! Remember our Blue Dog? Well today the Picassos painted a blue frog! This cute little rainforest frog really focused on drawing and painting skills and helped the children to use brushstrokes to emphasize direction in a painting. First we drew in the shapes of the frog and indicated the direction of the leaf with just a few pencil lines. The children were told to focus on their brushstrokes and the dry brush teachnique so the final piece looks realistic. They also used a plastic fork to drag some marks to look like veins in the leaf. There was no water in this class. They wiped off their brushes on newspaper to get them clean between colours and I found that this really made the colours more vivid and ironically made for a cleaner finished product! Simple but effective. Thursday afternoon Picassos tried this darling blue frog today... Take a look! If you'd like to see more Tempera projects take a look at our Tempera collection.
It is always satisfying to see my tiny artists look at a picture and say "we are going to paint that!!!" "that looks so hard!!!" and then when we break the picture down into shapes and smaller parts they realize they can do it after all! This simple little composition was very cool for my Doodlebugs and again we broke it down into parts and they drew a simplified version of the subject (in this case a giraffe) by making him from the letter h! Take a look at our positively cute piece... The Giraffe and the Orange Tree! And of course... because this is Arty Pants Studio I took the opportunity to show some fun facts about giraffes as well so we leave knowing just a little bit more than we did! What child doesn't love dinosaurs? Boys and girls alike seem to have a keen interest in everything about them so I knew they would be a hit across the board! I went all out here... because I have to admit I love them too :) I've shared the video so you can see what the Picassos saw before we got into our dino painting class! This coupled with my dinosaur props (thanks to my little buddy Eli!) and they were really excited to start painting! My Doodlebugs got in on some dinosaur action today! Who says a 5 year old can't paint a T-Rex? Anything is possible when you've got a template ;) Take a look at what these tiny-mites did. Thursday Picassos got a chance to try their hands at the dinosaurs and this time we focused on just the T-Rex and zoomed in on his head. Take a look!
|
Welcome!
Be a fly on the wall in our art room! Take a look at what we do, how we do it and the smiles that I get to see week after week :) Archives
February 2020
Categories
All
|