Year 2 - Week 18 -Indians & 3D Degas & Monet

So fine arts and Indians?  A natural combination - don't you think?  Well, we combined them today in Wonderful Wednesdays!  We exhausted our dress ups for all the various WWI and WWII history, so we went for a timeline dress up today - Cherokee Trail of Tears!

 

Sarah wanted to be the first "girl Chief" - true to form!  

We started out like always with our lapbooks and watching the hand motions for the timeline.  Once we finished with that, we were ready to begin our projects.  Today's projects focused on two favored artists - Monet and Degas.  I decided to make them Solagratiamom style -a little fun and 3D.

Supplies Needed

• 8x10 Canvas (I ordered these)
• Tempura Paints
• Paint brushes, sponges (both circular and square)
• Hot glue gun
• Photographs or books of Degas & Monet paintings.  We also had photos of ballet positions to help with drawing the pictures of the ballerinas.
• Coffee filters (white, cut in half)
• Egg cartons (cut out the individual egg holders, then cut V shaped into the sides in 4 places and round off the edges -this will to allow you to bend down the edges and have them look like lily pads -like photo below)

So first I showed the kids the various books I had of Monet and Degas, as well as the ballet book.  Then they began to sketch out their ballerina.  

Then we had them take a coffee filter (they can use two, if they want to layer them) and use that to guide them in the proportions of their ballerina drawing and the placement of the ballet shoes.  

To color the skirt you can do one of two methods - color with a marker and then spritz with water to have the colors bleed lightly or paint with water colors and then spritz to bleed.

Once they sketch out their ballerina, then they can begin to paint.  We used pinks, purples, oranges and yellow for the blonde ballerinas and brown for the brunettes.  I encouraged short, quick brush strokes.  To create skin color we mixed the white with the tan color until it was a very pale beige color.  Last details were added for the mouth, eyes and nose.

I encouraged them to of course, sign their masterpiece at the bottom!  

To make their monet they took a rectangular sponge and applied paint to the entire background of the canvas with blues (mixing dark and lighter shades.  Then they layered in greens.  Next they took a rounded sponge brush (they are available at craft stores) and they stamped their "lily pads" onto the canvas and then taking a brush they blurred the edges with short, quick brush strokes.

Then they took the egg carton "lily pads" we made and decided where they wanted them on their painting and hot glued them into place.  We only used a few, to make them "pop".  Then they painted them and added color to their canvas for the lily pads.  They used a layering of color for painting the flowers on the lily pads, again encouraging the techniques used by impressionist painters.

Once the artists had completed their canvas' we headed off to eat our snack and play a game of Don't Wake Daddy CC Review!

It was a Wonderful Wednesday!  Link-up photos from your family or from your blog of creations you've made together in the name of education at Wonderful Wednesday's Link-Up