Easy Fine Art:Van Gogh

After last week's art-scapades, I decided to continue our art education. The middle and highschooler both take a weekly art class but the first grader isn't this year.

On the right of the pic is my middle schooler's interpretation and recreation of Starry Night. On the upper left is the first grader's original relief painting in the works.

It was very simple. First, I searched Pinterest for inspiration. Then I found a few very short videos on the work of Van Gogh on youtube.

The first grader watched the video then I allowed him to recreate one of Van Gogh's works and create his own using an easy relief method.




Draw on art paper any design with a white crayon. Using water color paints, paint over your hidden design. The crayon will produce blank spaces under the water color as a relief painting.

This was his final piece, an interpretation of Van Gogh's Starry Night. I also printed out a free (found online) Van Gogh coloring page and he wrote a couple sentences of facts he learned about the artist underneath.

Above is the version I did with a student at work. I made all the water color marker lines and also crayon lines in white (that you can't see) and in black for the building. She used a wet paint brush to blend the colors together. We work on a lot of fine motor skills together during her sessions. This also entails learning and moving the paint brush from left to right and up and down.

Math Brain : STEM

Creating animal dens.

It's been a rough few months due to the move and adjusting to all of that, so I have been off my home-educating game a bit. Haha. I love pinterest for inspiring ideas! I found various activities using marshmallows and tooth picks. I knew there were STEM challenges to do but I wanted more creative exercises. Sometimes all you need is one suggestion to spark your own ideas.

The middle schooler's structure.

The middle schooler could not help joining in when she saw the first grader starting his structure. 

Building a structure with tooth picks and marshmallows.

The initial challenge was to create animal dens from the supplies given. Once that was completed, I upped the ante by challenging my students to create the tallest, free standing structure possible. It needed to be sound enough to maintain it's height with out falling over. 

It's more challenging then it sounds. They enjoyed this and it covered all STEM areas: science, technology, engineering and math. Supposedly, right? haha. They definitely experienced and learned about the force of gravity. 

Can you guess which structure was created by the middle schooler and which was created by the high schooler & first grader team?

Art Class Field Trip

The middles high school art class (taught by my oldest son) took a field trip tonight. The class worked on contour drawing. They all walked a block to the local coffee shop, which was packed for the evening, stood around and drew sketches of patrons or whatever else caught their  eye.

While they were there, various artists did spoken word or performed music. The final act of the night was an awesome indie band that we all thought was really, really good. It was a great way to end my work week and a great way to mix up art class.

Field Trip: MOLA

Moonlight Myth

In the middle of a heat wave, all I could think after church was finding the coolest, literally teh coolest, place to go for some free AC. I saw a friend's post about this local art museum (that I always forget exists) having a special hispanic festival to go with their current exhibit, so I grabbed the kids and headed over. 

Feeling inspired!

There were vendors and special performances in the outdoor space of the museum. We enjoyed observing all the art on display. I've included pictures of a couple of my favorites. Admission was free which was a great bonus! 

It was a great way to not only keep cool, but expose my middles to art and enjoy some time away from home unlike our usual Sunday afternoons. I'm really glad we went. I would love to check out more museums regularly but I simply forget!