My right hand man, J. was sick this week so I was on my own for our Making Masterpieces homeschool not-a-co-op class. I missed him! And so did the other kids, it took me forever to run around taping everyone’s sheets of paper to the tables, and I needed to clone myself when everyone needed their paper sprayed at once and were ready for the salt at once.
Spraying paper? Salt? Whatchoo talkin’ about Willis?
I had in mind walking them through this project I did with my kids in December, but it morphed into kind of a cross between that, Paul Klee’s Golden Fish, and a bunch of merpeople. To make things easier in the classroom setting, instead of using sponges to wet the watercolor paper, I had a spray bottle of water. Much easier and everyone liked taking turns to spray each other their work surface.
And hey, I go with the flow. The point is to expose them all to some great art and let their creative juices flow. I’ve been so proud of this bunch of kids — they are so good at just enjoying the process and not getting mad or upset when something doesn’t go right. Once in a while I have a little cluster of girls who get pouty because they think their neighbor’s painting is better than theirs, but they’re usually very kind about it. No yours is pretty! No yours is!
Here are a few that wanted to make the stormy sea example, complete with salty water splashes:
And here’s some that did their own thing:
I adore this one! She really liked the idea of the neon Klee fish in deep sea water, glowing on their own power.
I had some boys like this idea too, and draw fish with their own flashlights hanging like a bulb in front of their large-jawed, toothy mouths, but they raced out before I could get some shots.
Mermaids were a popular choice on the north side of the classroom:
This one was made by a little boy, I love her belly button:
As always, super fun, and super inspiring. Hope I’ve got my helper back next week! We want to do a take on Monets lilies.
