Our Art day was a success

   Yesterday was Wednesday and that means Art Day!. Art day is like fun day at my house because Monkey love to pain and draw and it gives them a chance to do that. We got all the family and individual "every day" work out of the way during and after breakfast (math, copywork, poetry, reading, exercise, Spanish) and then we got to the fun part of the day.

   This semester we are going to study Georgia O'Keeffe and her works. I started by reading short biography of Georgia's life and then we went to examine her first painting. Every week we will look at different painting until by the end of this semester we have examined 6 of her paintings.

Our inspiration, wild flower bloom

   Yesterday we looked at Jimson Weed 3 painting by Georgia O'Keeffe. Each older Monkey got a copy of that painting printed on a paper that they could look at it closely for as long as they wanted to in order to see all the details of it. After they were both done looking at it then I took the prints away and they got to draw their first picture from memory. We have an Art Journal that is only designated for studying paintings, and that is where Monkeys draw their pictures. After they finished their drawings from memory I gave them their prints back so we could talk about it. We discussed color, possible name for it (at this point I have not told the Monkeys anything about it yet), mood of the painting, possible thinking of the artist as they were creating this masterpiece. Both Monkeys thought that the picture was very happy and serene. Funky Monkey also thought that the leafs were overwhelming the background a bit. He also noticed that the blooms were very large and over-exaggerated a bit just like Van Ghoh did with his sunflowers.

Girly Monkey's picture from memory

Girly Monkey's 2nd picture

Funky Monkey's picture from memory

Funky Monkey's 2nd picture

   I then read to the Monkeys a bit about the painting, like the title of it and if it was commissioned by anyone or if it served a significant purpose. Then I got the Monkeys to draw it again, but this time looking at it and trying to copy it. After they were done this we examined their works and compared the two (picture drawn from memory and one drawn while looking at the print). We always have a good discussion of things they couldn't remember, or things they missed the first time.

   Because it's Art day we also explored creating our own masterpieces. Since we are studying Georgia's works and we are lucky enough to have wild flowers still blooming outside in a pot, I got inspired to cut one beautiful bloom and use it as inspiration for our painting lesson. The wild flower was bright purple with a beautiful yellow center. It was just what we needed for our lesson. Since we studied water color painting last year, we continued with it. It's an easy medium for kids to work with and they seem to enjoy the properties of water colors. Even the Little Monkey got a chance to create some works, although at the age of 3 getting the paper running with gray-brown watered down pain is more fun than painting a flower. So here are our masterpieces from Art Day:

Funky Monkey's take on  the wild flower

Girly Monkey's take on the wild flower

2 paintings by Little Monkey

My painting (yes parents are supposed to participate!)