but first, of course, we must create some summer inspired works of art!
My super second graders learned about a new artist, Vincent Van Gogh, who is inspiring their next two projects in that art room. His paintings are famous because he used texture to express his emotions, and his brush strokes show a lot of movement in his art. Our 'smartest artist' vocabulary words for the next few weeks are (therefore) texture, MOVEMENT, emotion, and self-portrait.
To start our project, I showed examples of Van Gogh's famous "Sunflowers" and we discussed how the flowers almost look like they are moving and swaying on the canvas. His style of painting is very gestural, and the students really connected with this idea because they are naturally so expressive. BUT, they requested that instead of learning from pictures of old paintings, that I bring in REAL flowers that they could paint from ... so I did :)
Each studio table was given a bottle filled with different types of flowers to draw and paint from for inspiration, and the best behaved of them even got to take their flowers home as a reward!
After talking, looking, learning, studying, practicing, and finally getting our hands dirty, I think it's safe to say that these stupendous second grade artists produced some pretty spectacular summer time flower paintings! Check them out for yourself .......