More Monet

In this toddler class with children from 15 months to 3 years we created our own version of Monet's Water Lilies by using tissue paper and glue. Toddlers always like paint, but I wanted to use a different medium and show the kids something new.

Yesterday I had two classes at the Museum and what a wonderful group of kids it was! I read this fun book by Lois Ehlert called, Planting a Rainbow.
I love Ehlert's books-she is the illustrator as well and I like her bold fun style. We talked about Monet's garden and the colors and things we might find there. We looked at another book I brought showing Monet's work and talked about Water Lilies. In the Museum we found garden scenes and made out way to Monet's work.

In the classroom we used
-11x14 sheet of medium weight watercolor paper
-bleeding tissue paper precut into shapes
-elmer's glue mixed with water-about 1 to 1 ratio
-large flat paintbrushes

The night before I cut a variety of bleeding tissue paper into shapes. Blues and yellow into squares and rectangles. Greens into lily pads and pinks and purples into lily flowers.


Each student had a work station with their own paper, tissue paper, glue and brush.

I had kids first brush their paper with the glue mixture. Then they applied their blue/yellow squares for water. Then lily pads, then flowers-adding glue inbetween to help new layer hold.

We had so much fun. Here are some of their beautiful creations!

Stuffed Fish

Coming back from a week at the beach, we can't help but have ocean, fish and sand on our minds. Here is our first beach related project we did this week. On an 18x24 white piece of paper, folded in half, I drew a fish with a sharpie marker. I cut the fish out (giving you two fish) and we got busy coloring all over it with markers.




Then we taped the edges leaving a small slit at the bottom where we stuffed it with tissue paper.


Afterwards we taped it shut and we swam our fish all over the house!

Little Water Lilies

Before I get started I am watching the best documentary right now about 3 men running across the Sahara Desert. It is fascinating. They are at day 63 right now-totalling already running 58 marathons. Amazing what the human body can do.

About Monet though. I had a wonderful class with kids ages 3-5. We talked about Monet and his garden. We spoke about what might be in a garden-flowers, trees, and ponds. What are in some ponds? Lily pads. We talked about frogs living in the pond jumping on the lily pads. The kids were excited to get started.

I had everyone set up with a palette of blue, purple and white paint. We talked about filling up our paper with water so the frogs would have a lot of water to swim and jump around in. They filled the paper up nice and we walked through the Museum to look at the impressionist part of the exhibit. The children seemed to enjoy it but were ready to return to the classroom to finish our paintings.





Now I go around and give everyone green paint. They add lily pads. When they are almost finished, I give them a small brush and red paint. They add flowers and are finished! I think everyone did a great job. I love to see how all the pieces are so different. We took time when everyone was finished to walk around and look at what everyone did. So much fun. I am looking forward to a different spin on this class with my toddler class in 2 weeks.





Just to touch again on the doc, Running the Sahara. It just ended. Wow. 111 days over 4,300 miles. Amazing.

Preparing for Monet

When I return from vacation the new exhibit will be at the Museum. While there are many more artists in this exhibit, Monet is the first of the artists from this exhibit that I have a class about.

In preparation for some of the classes revolving around this exhibit, I checked out some books from the library to share with my boys as well as the class.

I think some of Monet's most recognized work would probably be any of the water lily series. The last years of his life, Monet rarely left home and only painted scenes from his garden and his lily pond. I am so excited to share his work with my children. I wrote several papers discussing Monet and the water lily series in college after seeing an exhibit (Monet at Giverny:Masterpieces from the Musee Marmottan) at the Albright-Knox in Buffalo many years ago. I am moved by his work and seeing it in person is overwhelming and extremely moving.

Here are some of the Monet books I am going to have laid out for the kids.

I have many of the Metropolitan Museum of Art books for my boys and they are really good books if you have not seen this series before. While most of these books are not necessarily aged for my classes the kids can certainly look at the pictures and talk about what they see. I sometimes think people do not give credit to kids for what they can accomplish and understand.

Stay tuned for the wonderful artwork we are going to create!

Flag Day Fun

Saturday we had so much fun creating flag paintings in honor of Flag Day which was yesterday, June 14. The piece above is 3 Flags by Jasper Johns and it was the inspiration for our own creations.

In this Pre-K class for ages 3-5 we read Meet Our Flag, Old Glory by April Jones Prince. Illustrated with a fun collage technique by Joan Paley. This book would also be great for the 4th of July.
I talked about flags in artwork and we looked at several painting with flags, many by Childe Hassam from this book, Childe Hassam, American Impressionist.Then we talked about Jasper Johns and looked at some of his work from this book. Jasper Johns, Modern Masters.
In the gallery we found red, white and blue. In the classroom I set up a little flag at everyone's station. Everyone had 3 pieces of paper, red white and blue paints, brushes and imagination.

Here are some of the finished pieces!

Busy bees

2 boys ages 5 and 3 keep me very busy! Here they made me a play-doh cake. Love those pencil candles!



Where has the time gone? We have been having a wonderful summer here. I have been fortunate enough to start summer classes at the Museum and we have been having so much fun!

If you have not been to the Museum lately, you will find a few changes on the 3rd floor. New artwork is up and things have been rearranged to create a wonderful airy open floor plan. The Museum is also preparing for an extraordinary exhibit, Turner to Cezanne, Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales. It opens June 25 and I have been looking forward to this since it was announced. It is going to be very exciting with pieces from all those "famous" artists you know. Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh... I know I can't wait.

In the class we have been busy bees. Toddlers learned about the color green. We read Little Blue and Little yello by Leo Lionni.
We talked about green things like trees, alligators and dinosaurs. Then we found green in the gallery. In the class we had a bowl of yellow paint and a bowl of blue paint. We had a big brush and a litle paint brush and a big piece of paper. The kids, ages 18-36 months had so much fun dipping, swirling and mixing green.





12x12 planning is coming along and I think I told you to save the date for Sept. 26. I just got my artist entry form in the mail yesterday and I can't wait to commit to enter a piece. Stay tuned, I will be sure to post how the painting is coming along.

Live Eagle cam

We have all really enjoyed watching these magnificent eagles and thought we'd share the link. The nest is just north of Stillwater. Enjoy!

http://www.suttoncenter.org/eaglecam.html