Our outing today was to the Montclair Art Museum. Each month, the museum hosts a homeschool art class for 4-8 year olds; each month, the theme is different. This month's theme was seasons, weather and time. We first toured the gallery, looking at particular paintings that illustrated the theme. We saw some abstract pieces and some realistic pieces. The tour guides asked the children how they knew what season it was, or what time of day it was, or even what the weather was. In some paintings, the answers were obvious and in others open to interpretation. I was pleased with Angie's participation; she offered a couple of answers and observations and went along with the group with little concern for where I was in the room. Maddie, being just a bit on the young side, stuck by me or her sister, preferring me when her sister went ahead with the group.
For the art project, we learned how to use pastels and a smudging technique to create a really interesting effect. We tore a strip of paper in a curvy, mountainous way. Then we colored with the pastels near the torn edges of the paper. We laid the torn paper on top of our working paper, chalked side up, and smudged the chalk onto the working paper, across the torn edge. The effect was to make a clean, sharp delineation between the softly smudged colors and the paper itself. It was really wonderful and we all enjoyed making our own pictures of mountains and grass and whatnot.
We thoroughly enjoyed the program and we'll be back again next month.
No comments:
Post a Comment