In the Wednesday elementary class, we started the year with an acrylic painting. The focus was on creating movement with line and brushstrokes while painting a sunflower.
Or sunflowers as I had a jar full of them for the kids to observe.
In the end, only one child choose to do more than one flower.
My goal was to encourage the kids to leave symbolic drawing behind and to realize all the potential a brush has as an artistic tool other than just being a vehicle to put paint on paper.
8 year old
As usual, the kids were given a palette with just primary colors but I did add brown along with black and white. This class for the most part was a new group of students and so I didn't want to overwhelm them too much on their first night in the studio. Starting with the background, each child creating their own unique color to apply to the paper. I told them to not be too concerned if the background color went over their sketch lines since they would be able to fix that when painting the petals over the background.
The above artist had a large solid brown circle in the center of her painting that was a bit distracting at first (not that I told her that) but I always tell the kids I will make suggestions of things for them to think about however whether or not the choose to try the suggestions is up to them.
In this case I demonstrated how even the top of the paintbrush could become a tool and used it to bang dots into wet paint. I told her I wondered if that technique could be used to interpret the texture we saw in the center of the sunflowers on display.
Needless to say I captured her interest the minute I started banging that paintbrush on paper and she couldn't wait to try it on her sunflower. She was very pleased with her work at the end of class, especially all the "dots".
8 year old
Having the kids leave the loopy flower petals so common in most young artist drawings was very simple once they realized they could create petals using a long moving stroke of the brush. They loved letting loose and creating petals with a long fluid motion. This artist liked it so much she created leaves using the same technique. Isn't it interesting how different the color palettes are for these two girls who were sitting side by side.
9 year old
This boy was having no part of the brush strokes to create flower petals though, instead spending a lot of time creating texture in the center of the flower and movement in the background. I really love the limited color palette he stuck too and the way he utilized a horizon line in his piece. Still lots of movement even though he stuck with more traditional (and very edited) petals.
8 year old
Absolutely loved the enthusiasm this young boy brought to class. He's a new student and was eager to soak up any and all information I shared throughout the hour and a half class. He was thrilled with each and every part of his painting, starting with the blue he created for the background. I found it very interesting to see how he interpreted movement, focusing on a circular direction for both the blue background and the green "frill" leaves you see surrounding sunflower petals. How he loved creating those petals and that his brush could be used in such a way to create them in one long stroke was an "ah ha" moment for him. So much so that when his mother dropped him off for class last night, he told her all about how he had used the brush.....which made my heart swell a bit in happiness. Each child had three different size brushes to work with and after seeing how excited he was to learn long brush strokes could be used to create petals, I showed him how the small brush could be pressed on it's side to create a texture similar to what we were seeing in the center of the flower. Again, he loved the idea and embraced it with great gusto. In the end, this sunflower without doubt seems to really capture the sun. He was so proud of his artwork when he gave it to his mom to take home.
5.5 year old
And finally there was this new young artist to the studio. A grade one student who without doubt captured movement. I am so impressed with her work and was so inspired watching how she painted with complete abandon and confidence. There is so much to see in this work! The dots she added around the top corners in the background. The fact that she first painted her leaves in black and then went over the top with a green she made, finally using the back of the brush to draw in the veins. My favorite moment was when she began to add globs of white and as I was walking by asked, "too much?" Following with the statement, "I tend to overdo things".
I got such a chuckle out of that comment and assured her there was no overdoing things while exploring the process of painting. In the end I did however trade out her paintbrush for a water-soluble graphite that she could go back in to create some more details.
If the goal was to create a painting with lots of movement and energy, this child passed with flying colors!
This project was a great way for me to get a handle on each child's personality and was extremely helpful when planning the rest of the projects for the month. But in the end, for me, it was a great success because each child was very happy with their personal pieces and eager to take them home and share with their families.
Who could blame them.
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