The Starry, Starry Night - Vincent van Gogh

 This week's art lesson involved taking a good look at Vincent van Gogh. What an interesting , sad man he was. Do you know he only sold one painting in all of his life time.

 The children had an opportunity to mix and spread paint in the style of Van Gogh. Although he worked in oils and we worked in acrylic, the end results were splendid.

 See for yourself!

 One of the pleasures I get in teaching art to children is watching them begin to explore. One young man really began to thoroughly enjoy mixing his colours together and creating new ones on his pallet.

 The forgroung and background created some problem solving as we only used a limited pallet.

 Some of the children that painted these are 5 and 6 and one is only 4. Others are 11. The end results are beautiful.

What a great art time we had.

The Spiral

This week saw the first art lesson of the year. We began in pencil. I have small groups at The Studio - no more than 8 and the children rage in age from 6 -12. This year I have a budding 5 year old in the group.

 We talked about spiral shapes in nature and then played a bit with the different hardness of pencil. Then off we went.....

 learning to really observe is a huge part of the way I encourage children to 'do' art. Switching the eyes back on to draw what we really see and not what they think they know, is a very real part to these lessons.

 This child was fed up with his spiral although it was turning out really beautifully, and so he switched to an insect drawing.aaah. much better!!

 Another insect emerging from its lava. The different use of pencil here is great.

 This little girl is 6 and she really began to grasp the idea of shading and creating a shape within a shape. Beautiful!!

 The process of creating a work of art is the beautiful, learning part of the art lesson. The parents get to see the end product which are in themselves really lovely, but the process that the child took to get there, is the exciting bit for me as the teacher. The planning and starting process is often the most difficult and a child might take forever to settle on the right spiral to use as information for their work.

 Then the boldness and bravery it takes to begin to put the pencil marks onto the paper often take real courage.

 There is the temptation to begin to 'stop looking carefully' that might defeat a few and so I really need to help these children press on and so really perseverance is developed.

 Confidence is the friend we hope to grow in each child as they have fun and enjoy trying new things.

 One child asked me ,' did I do good, Caren?' and this is the real question that most children ask of the adults around them. 'Did I do good?' . I love that these art classes are really a way for children to experience doing good and feeling good about themselves.

 Enjoy these works of art just as I have.

To look and not to look

 This lesson is great fun and I have tied it again and again with myself, simply because I love the outcome.

 I use this as part of the art lesson because with younger children it goes really quickly.

 Step one  - get the children to draw a hand

 Step  two - get the children to draw a their hand WITHOUT looking at it at all. Try and draw it in one go without lifting the pencil. This is difficult for younger children. If the child struggles not to look at their hand , a divide between the hand and paper might work or place the hand in a bag.

Step three - draw  your hand with both looking at the hand and looking at the paper. Carefully observe and translate what is seen onto the paper.

The Mirror Image of it

 Towards the end of this last term and year , everyone was tired. It was a perfect opportunity to do a fairly easy art lesson on complementary colours and shape. The children loved this one.

  Here are some of the results.

If the shoe fits...

 Getting younger aged children to 'draw big' is always a challenge. These shoe drawings and then paintings were a great success. We painted them in warm and cold colours.

 Just delightful!!

"Madiba, would you like a new shirt?"

 We has enormous fun drawing the shirt first and then printing in a design.

 Bold and colourful. it was a good lesson in making the size of the pattern fit the shape. This took some problem solving along the way.

 Look at this carefully drawn collar.

Wow - almost a coat. I like this look.