A Little Van Gogh!

 

Hey Kinder Friends,

I had to share this. As I was looking around for something, anything to cover some art objectives, I stumbled upon some interesting books a few weeks ago.

 

 

I found a series of books about famous artists and decided to give one of these books a try before buying the rest of the series. When the book arrived, I knew this would make a good fit for Kindergarten especially since we have been studying the life cycle of plants and looking at sunflowers in Science. Of all the books in this series, I thought that Camille and the Sunflowers was a perfect choice to integrate Science and Art.

 

 

What I liked about this book was that it told a true story about Vincent Van Gogh that was age appropriate and throughout the story there were pictures of several of his famous paintings. After our book reading, we went to the computer to look for more paintings by Van Gogh. We selected a few of his paintings that would serve as our inspiration for this project.

 

 

As we looked through many of the sunflower paintings we noticed that Van Gogh painted a lot of sunflowers, sometimes other flowers we included in his paintings, the vases had stripes and the colors in the paintings were bright and vivid. We also began to notice the background colors used in a lot of his paintings. We talked about the colors he used and the tools needed to create his paintings.

 

 

I knew I would have to show the children how to start thinking about their drawing before we started. I gathered the children together and walked through the process as I drew each step of my picture. During my guided drawing, we stopped and looked at our inspiration paintings and discussed the next steps. When my guided drawing was complete, the children had the opportunity to try their own. Lots of extra paper was on hand in case someone needed it but only a few children actually did.

 

  

Before we began to paint we talked about the tools that would be needed for the project and we decided that we would need small and large paintbrushes to complete our painting. We looked through all of our paintbrushes to pick just the right ones for the job. As the children began to paint they started to see the drawings transform into art. I could hear a lot of talk about what they were doing. They were talking about lines and color and they were looking at what each person at the table was doing as they were painting. As I walked by the table I could see just how beautiful these were going to be. After painting everything inside the lines the paintings were allowed to dry.

 

 

Through several projects this year we have learned that art is a process and sometimes that takes time. Considering we used watercolors and drawing paper these did not take that much time to dry. Once they were dry we talked about the background. Each child picked a background color that would complement their painting and they used a thick paintbrush to paint the background the solid color. Once we had about four completed paintings we took time to look at them and talk about them. We evaluated them for lines, color and technique. You could see how proud each child was to share their painting and discuss what they did to create it. I was also so excited to see these amazing masterpieces completed because they were so beautiful. Once all of our paintings are complete, we will send them to the laminator before we send them home. I only wish I would have done this project sooner so that I would be able to see these paintings hanging in the classroom this year.

 

 

So, what did we learn through this project?

(K.1) Perception. The student develops and organizes ideas from the environment. The student is expected to:

(A) glean information from the environment, using the five senses; and

(B) identify colors, textures, forms, and subjects in the environment.

(K.2) Creative expression/performance. The student expresses ideas through original artworks, using a variety of media with appropriate skill. The student is expected to:

(A) create artworks, using a variety of colors, forms, and lines;

(B) arrange forms intuitively to create artworks; and

(C) develop manipulative skills when drawing, painting, printmaking, and constructing artworks, using a variety of materials.

(K.3) Historical/cultural heritage. The student demonstrates an understanding of art history and culture as records of human achievement. The student is expected to:

(A) identify simple subjects expressed in artworks;

(B) share ideas about personal artworks and the work of others, demonstrating respect for differing opinions; and

(C) relate art to everyday life.

(K.4) Response/evaluation. The student makes informed judgments about personal artworks and the artworks of others. The student is expected to:

(A) express ideas about personal artworks; and

(B) express ideas about original artworks, portfolios, and exhibitions by peers and artists

I think about every Art objective was covered through this project during our shared reading, internet research, class discussions, art making and share time. Not bad for trying something new and moving a little out of my comfort zone. I think there might be a little bit of an art teacher in me... We will see. But in the meantime, I will go back to my Amazon shopping cart and add the rest of the books in this series because I can't believe that we created such beautiful paintings on our first try! So for this series, I'm hooked. I now want an art teacher smock and every book in this series!