Snowy Art

Today we spent the morning on some art lessons. I mentioned the other day I would be using the book Storybook Art for our Owl Moon study. We read a little about the illustrator John Schoenherr and worked on a project imitating his art. Storybook Art is a fabulous resource to have on hand and for those of you who are rowers, there are quite a few FIAR titles in there.

There are a couple of things to note about this project. First, if you do not have tube watercolors in your collection, I highly recommend them. I bought a set of 18 for about $6 at a local art store. I'm sure they aren't the highest quality ever, but they are so fun! Totally worth trying out with the kids!! Once again the art palettes came in handy for the kids to experiment with the colors. Second, make sure the masking tape isn't super pressed down onto the page or you will be in some trouble when it's time to take the tape off.

The set of tube watercolors- good thing they sell them by the tube because we are just about out of white!

The kids had a great time experimenting with shades of blue and gray. Notice that elements they wanted to stay really white have tape over them.

As with most art projects, this was a family affair. J3 is painting here. You can see where his tape is and where he used black crayon for a resist. After the kids drew a sketch, they chose where to tape and used black crayon to outline a few things.

J3's painting still taped to the mat. We taped the paper so that there would be a white border when it was done.

I-6 chose some really simple shapes. He also had a great snow color.

I-6's finished product- a bit washed out in this picture. When the painting was dry, we carefully peeled the tape from the objects on the painting and from the edges.

I updated our gallery wall- finally! And take note of the pencil tree. It has a MOPS snowflake on it and a Let it Snow hanging. Remember it is staying put to help us celebrate throughout the year.

Close-ups: I-6's on top and J3's on the bottom

E10's on top- his shows a sledding hill and a lake, On bottom- R8's. She had a hard time with this one but her finished product is gorgeous. She was fussy about that tree, but it turned out so well! One other thing - some of the kids chose to sprinkle salt on their wet paint so that when it dries it will sparkle. Fun stuff!

All in all a great study today! We followed it up with a Snowy Day collage since we needed some water color papers for it. Of course I'll share pictures when they are ready.