I always present them with just the primary colors so they can explore mixing them together and observing the new colors they make when blended. I also make sure there is salt, paper towels, and water on hand to manipulate the watercolors by diluting, blotting, and absorbing the color.
I also decided to give the children paper almost the same size as them! It is not often very young children get the opportunity to draw very large and it is a great way to help develop their motor skills.
For the Monday class, we created self portraits. Do I really believe they will retain any of the information regarding the rules of the face? Absolutely not.
However I also believe that young children are quite capable and enjoy adults recognizing their ability to grasp big concepts. What I do love about introducing the rules of the face is that it is an invitation for the children to really study themselves in a mirror and an opportunity to build up a positive self image about themselves.
What do you notice about your eyes?
You have such lovely almond shape eyes.
Look at the beautiful blue of your eyes.
It is always a joy to watch them literally bloom under the compliments as they see the features that are unique to only them and take pride in those differences.
Each child first created a drawing with a permanent black marker. There were several additions each young artist decided to make when creating their drawings such as tongues sticking out and crowns.
It was quite cute how excited they all got when they realized there were not steadfast rules as to what they could and couldn't do on their papers. Each time they would ask if they could add a bow, a crown, or whatever else, I would simply respond, "You're the artist. Do what pleases you."
I got a huge kick out of the above artwork with the tongue sticking out. She giggled as she added the tongue to her portrait but somewhere along the way the self portrait became a portrait of her grandmother. I asked her if her grandmother stuck her tongue out a lot and was assured that in fact, she did not.
Once they were happy with their portrait drawings, they began to play with the primary watercolors and created the most incredible palettes. They had fun exploring what happened when they "bathed" their paper first, added salt, put lots of bright color on but then blotted it away with a paper towel.
In the end, their self portraits are charming. If only as adults we could paint with such abandon and create such whimsy.
Since the other group of preschoolers had done self portraits in the past, I put a vase with a large yellow daisy in front of each child.
Using the same steps as the self portraits, I asked the children to notice what they saw in the middle of the flower. Then the shape of the petals and how many petals they saw.
Again my expectation is not that they create a replica of the flower or even that what they observe ends up being recorded on the paper, but respecting their ability in not only observing their visual world but their capability of recording it on paper in their own unique way.
And unique way they did!
There was one yellow flower in front of them and after several questions of "can I add more flowers?" and me responding "you're the artist, whatever you decide" this is what was finished in the class.
Again I gave the children primary colors so they could explore and observe how they blended and what new colors emerged. This is always so much fun to watch because there is still such surprise as yellow and blue merge to create green. And each new discovery is shared excitedly with me as if it's Christmas morning.
Really there is no better job in the world in these moments.
This little one spent the entire class just putting one color at the top of a petal and another at the bottom, then adding plain water in the middle to coax the colors to come together on a "play date" and watching what happened.
And this sweet child, who asked for black paint from the moment we started. If you look carefully you can see some very small petals, which I love as they were created from her original observations of the flower on the table. Surrounding the middle was a fringe of small petals and I love that she added them to her final drawing.
As they finished their colorful flowers, I brought out the black paint as promised.
One mixed the black with color to see what happened but the little girl who wanted black from moment one added it with pure abandon to her background, from time to time adding a little salt or water. She talked happily as she added the black and was beyond thrilled with her results.
As you can see, each child left the studio with a painting almost the same size as themselves and although each and every one of them was adorable, they were in no way near as adorable as the children who created them.
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