Flowers from Observation

This was an interesting and fun lesson for our second and third grade class. We began by talking about what a flower looked like, and I quickly drew the most well known version, a circle surrounded by some loops and a line extending down. Next we looked at several real flowers and began to notice that real flowers look only a bit like the flower I drew. Looking very closely we saw there are characteristics most flowers have in common; a center, petals that repeat around the center, a stem and usually leaves. That said, the flowers we had in front of us were also different in many ways. Some petals were big and some were small; some flowers had many petals and some only six or eight. Some flowers were one color and others had many variations of colors within them. After carefully observing their own individual flower, students drew as accurate a version of what they saw as possible. The flowers were drawn in black permanent marker then colored with water based markers. Learning to observe differences and similarities and how to really see what is in front of you was a great learning experience for the children, and a critical part of the drawing process. The results are lovely. Take a look! Click on any image to get to the gallery.

A Hand for Mom Collage

Collage derives its name from the French verb coller, to glue. A work of art is created or enhanced by gluing things to its surface. While collage became a recognized art form during the Synthetic Cubist period of Picasso and Braque, the idea of attaching things to a piece of art to add interest goes back to primitive times.

 "Compotier avec fruits, violon et verre" by Pablo Picasso

Our 4/5 class combined the techniques of collage, crayon rubbing and watercolor to create these lovely works of art. After tracing their hands onto paper, they filled the area with scraps of magazine pages. The paper added a unique range of colors and textures to their hands. The hands were cut out and glued to background paper which had been placed over pressed tin and rubbed with crayon. Finally, the artists blended watercolors out from their hands to partially color the background. The use of complementary colors as well as adding a black border really makes the images pop. I love the dramatic and colorful results, and as bonus they'll make wonderful Mother's Day gifts! Click on any image below to see all this gorgeous art.