Georgia O'keefe Inspired Art Lesson

 With all the beautiful blooming flowers around us I thought it would be the perfect time to teach the kids a little about an artist I just adore, Georgia O'Keeffe, most famous for her beautiful paintings of large and very detailed flowers.

 We picked up a few books from our local library on O'Keeffe. The kids loved flipping through the pages and looking at all of her infamous artwork. Em enjoyed seeing actual photos of O'Keeffe and hearing all about her life.

 After we browsed the books I talk to Em and G about her painting style and showed them a few examples. I gave them each a real flower and a magnifying glass to observe all the details they could find in each flower. They noticed a lot more then I had expected!

 I gave the kids a black oil pastel to start their drawings. I was sure to point out to them that O'Keeffe's flowers often extended off of her painting and allowed us to use our imaginations to see the rest of the flower.
After they finished their drawings they chose just a couple colors on tempera paint to complete their flower. I encouraged them to paint the background as well as the flower.

 Em and G both enjoyed this so much. They were very intrigued and excited to learn about the artist and I just love that. I see an artist series in our future.

A few books we enjoyed during this lesson:

My Name Is Georgia: A Portrait by Jeanette Winter

Through Georgia's Eyes: by Rachel Victoria Rodriguez

Wideness and Wonder: The Life and Art of Georgia O'Keeffe

 

 

Butterfly Print

 Hello Friends! It has been awhile, I know. I am sorry I have not been very inspiring these days. I have a full plate at the moment, but I hope you follow my FB page, as I try to post inspiration from others there whenever I can.
I had a few moments tonight and wanted to share a fun spring craft that I have been doing with the kids for a couple years now. I just love celebrating seasons with my children. Talking about it and opening our eyes to the changes around us really make me appreciate each and every season so much more...especially when you are looking through the eyes of a three-year-old.

 For the our butterfly print all you need is a heavy weight paper, black fabric (puffy) paint and watercolor paints.

 We folded a sheet of paper and opened it up. I helped the kids to draw half of a butterfly using the fabric paint.

 We folded out sheet back up and pressed firmly down to spread the paint to the other side.

 Do I need say more? She was excited by this part. You open up the paper and have a beautiful butterfly. Hard part is to let the paint dry after this step, but it doesn't take too long.

We used watercolor paints to fill in our butterfly. They came out beautiful and both kids requested to make more. I say that is success!

Happy spring! I will be back more often come April...promise!


I shared this over at Kiwi Crate. Check it out!

Snail Craft

Spring is here (yippee!) We are seeing lots of creatures come out to say hello. To celebrate, the kids and I made some adorable snail friends.

Materials

found sticks

air dry clay

pipe cleaner

googly eyes

tacky clue

paint (optional)

We used Model Magic clay for this. It comes in some fun colors and is easy for small hands to work with. The kids first rolled their clay into snake forms.

Next, they rolled them up into a snail shape. At this point you could paint the shell or leave it as is. Using several colors of clay swirled together would be fun, too.

Small snips of a pipe cleaner worked perfectly for antenna. You may need a couple drops of glue to hold these in place. We also added a googly eyes for a silly snail face.

Now, for the fun part. By gluing our new little friend onto a stick he became a fun new toy for the kids rather than something that sits on their shelf. They carried him around pretending to have a new pet and he was the start of much needed imaginary play on this wet spring day.

I shared this and many more spring crafts over on Kiwi Crate.