Abstract Animals

A class full of eager 3 year olds joined me at the OKCMOA for a fun class about animals. We gathered around and read the book, My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. Not only is the book about colors and feelings, but it is full of animals. We enjoyed calling out the names of all the colors and animals.

After our story I line the kids up to prepare them to visit the galleries. We talk about our Museum manners-using our eyes and not our hands to look at the art, using our walking feet and quiet voices. The children did excellent. In the gallery we visited our 2nd floor collection and we found many animals. In one part of the gallery we sat down to play a game of I Spy. At this time I gave each of the children a chance to "Spy" something. It could be a color, animal or whatever! They really enjoyed this.

Back in the classroom we talked about animals we have at home. We talked about animal faces and what we needed to draw. (head, eyes, ears, body, details etc.) First we started with a black oil pastel to draw the outline of our animal. Then we used other colors to fill in details. To finish we used watercolors minus black and brown. I pull those colors out so they don't get too muddied.

Some children may not follow directions completely and do their own style of animal. I love it when this happens. It's okay to just let them enjoy and experience the materials. While an adult might think or say, that doesn't look like (whatever). I can listen to a child while they are creating and as they talk to themselves they ARE creating in this case, an animal. I watched a child draw big circles and say here is my dogs head. He is in the clouds. There is a rainbow. I believe this is a very important part of creating. Art is about the experience not just the end results so enjoy this special time full of imagination and wonderment with your own children!

You will need:
-student grade watercolor paper
-oil pastels
-watercolors
-brushes
-bowl of water

Here are some of our other creations!