Friday Art Feature - Mingling with Monet

22 June 2012
YAY for Fridays!!!  This week was a CRAZY week, so I wanted to instill a little calmness into the classroom.  And what did I do to achieve that calmness, you ask?  Well, I broke out the paints, of course.  Paint used to be the one art supply I dreaded - paint meant mess.period.  However, I've been pretty impressed with how careful my students have been with the paint this year.  Yes, we still have messes ... but they have learned to take responsibility to clean up these messes, and sometimes I don't even know about the messes (even better).

With our provincial testing, year-end assessments, track meets, and everything else we squeeze into the last two months of school, I haven't spent much time on visual arts.  I missed it.  So we made up for it this week. Life is good again.

This week we were mingling with Claude Monet in art class.  I was inspired by a pin I saw on Pinterest and followed it back to the cutest project at The Crafty Classroom.  I love Monet's water lily paintings with the Japanese bridge - I even have a print in my bedroom.  So, when I saw this art project months ago, I knew we had to try it.

We started off by taping a bridge across our papers (I used heavy duty card stock - I prefer to use card stock when we are painting).  We only had masking tape to use, but if I do this project again, I will use painter's tape as I found the masking tape a little too sticky (and with the horrific humidity this week it was not a good combination).

We got out our painter's palettes (a paper plate) and using plain old acrylic paint from the dollar store, we started mixing greens and blues and yellows and just about any other colour they wanted.  (I had a picture of Monet's original projected onto the Smartboard so they could see what it looked like).

I instructed the students to use a medium sized brush, and just "dab" the paint onto the paper over and over - with the dabs overlapping.  They needed to "dab" right over the fence and pretend it wasn't even there.  I told them to mix their paints in a way that the bottom of the page was darker (a greeny-blue colour for the water), moving to a lighter greeny yellow for the top of the page (the sun poking through the trees).  When the paint had dried a bit, they went back and added some water lilies at the bottom (still using the dabbing technique).

The next day, once the paint had dried, we (carefully) removed the tape ... and stood back in awe of our masterpieces!  We added a little shading with some grey paint, and stood back to admire again!  Can you believe these were made by 10 and 11 year-olds?  FANTASTIC!!!
  



















I'm linking up to Teaching With Style's Art With Aloha!  She made the cutest version of these with her younger kiddos!

20 comments

  1. These paintings are amazing! Monet is my favorite painter so I will be doing this for sure in the fall!
    Camille
    An Open Door blog

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    1. Thank-you so much, Camille! I LOVED this project and so did the kids!

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  2. Those are INCREDIBLE! I need to remember this for next year!

    Laura
    Will Grade For Coffee

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    1. Thanks, Laura! I was so impressed with how they turned out! I want to pick up some frames this weekend and let the students frame their art.

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  3. So pretty! I always love your art projects. :)

    Marvelous Multiagers!

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  4. Those are really neat! Great Idea!!!

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  5. they turned out wonderful! i did something similar but also used tissue paper wrapped around pencil end and then glue on the painting for 3d effect as the tissue paper represented the flowers. It was really pretty! Okay 4 more days left but who is counting. have a great one! mary

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    1. Oh - I'm SO counting!!! Have been for quite a while now ;)
      Your art sounds beautiful - love the 3D effect!

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    2. you are so awesome, still taking time to respond to everyone. happy counting, I know I am!!mary

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  6. I just stumbled across your blog looking for new ideas for my art classes next year...your Friday Art projects are GORGEOUS. I did a watercolor project with a 7th grade class this year and used masking tape as well. I didn't want to spend the $ for the blue painters tape-we found that we could make the tape less sticky (but sticky enough to stay on the paper) by dabbing the tape on our clothes a few times. The fibers from the clothes prevented it from ripping our paper when we pulled it off.
    Thanks for the great ideas!

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  7. These turned our lovely. We've used tape to make a winter scene with birth trees. This is a lovely idea for summer. I will be linking to this on Wee Folk Art's Facebook page. Thanks for sharing :)

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  8. Hi mom how did you get the tape to bend?

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  9. I just came across your blog..I don't remember how as I've been here for a while look at all of your Friday Art Features. I LOVE the art you are having your students do! I'm going to start some of these projects with my son.

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  10. Coen is blogstalking your site right now and is saying "awesome" at this project.

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  11. I just love your blog! You always have the best ideas! I. will be sure to give this project a try! I love Monet!

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  12. I just love your blog! You always have the best ideas! I. will be sure to give this project a try! I love Monet!

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  13. These are beautiful! Thanks so much for linking up!
    Nicole
    Teaching With Style

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