Who doesn't love a Claude Monet art project? There are many versions of Monet inspired projects out there and the idea for my Grade 2 students stemmed from here. The students painted the water and lily pad first and then created a 3D flower using tissue and construction paper.
Materials required:
- A3 paper cut into a square (I just thought it would look nicer that way)
- leftover rectangular sheets of paper from the A3 sheets that were cut
- acrylic paints (white, red, blue & purple for the water and green, yellow & blue for the lily pad)
- flat brushes
- newspaper
- pre-cut circles of tissue paper in different colours
- pre-drawn circle on construction paper that is smaller than the tissue paper circle
- white glue
- scissors
- diamond beads for the centre of the flower (optional)
Duration: 2 lessons of 80 minutes each
1. To gain an introduction to the artist and his work, we read the story "The Magical Garden of Claude Monet" by Lawrence Anholt. We looked at a variety of Monet's work and focused on his palette of colours and brush strokes. Guiding questions included "In which direction is his brush moving?" "What time of the day do you think it is?" "Name all the colours you can see in the water". As a whole class, we created a huge list on the board of all the colours Monet would use to paint water.
2. We started off by drawing a water lily on our square paper. I gave students a handout with different shaped lily pads that catered to the different ability levels in my class. Once the drawing was done, I collected all their sheets and kept them on my desk.
3. I then gave each student a sheet of newspaper, a small palette with red, white, blue and purple paint, a flat brush, and a rectangular sheet of paper. I told them to start mixing 2 or 3 colours together and see if they could make the same colours as Monet did in his paintings. The trick was to tell them not to wash their brushes in water when they wanted to mix different colours. Instead, I had them clean their brushes on the newspaper. In my opinion this is the most important part if you want beautiful results as you can retain strokes of colour with acrylic paint and the different hues continue to mix even on the paper. When they painted about 5 - 7 different colour swatches, I gave back their drawings of the lily pad and told them to paint the water in with particular emphasis on using brush strokes in the style of the artist. This was the end of the first lesson.
4. Next lesson, it's time to paint the lily pad and make the 3D lily with tissue paper. I started making the lily first as I didn't want the tables to be messy with paint. A purely logistical move on my part! My co-teacher Maggie and myself created a step-by-step video tutorial which is similar to one I found on youtube, the only difference is that we used a simple circle shape and white glue in place of the stapler. We also added a base circle of construction paper to give it more stability and a diamond bead at the centre (for an added 'wow' factor!). I collected all the flowers when they were done and put them into a box.
5. I then gave a demonstration on how to paint the lily pad. I showed the students how they could create a different effect with acrylic paint by dabbing their brush up and down. I suppose the same effect could also be achieved with a sponge. Similar to the first lesson, a newspaper was given to each student to clean their brush if they needed to.
6. Lastly, I gave the flowers back to them and they glued it down with white glue. Bear in mind the paint is still wet at this point but it's not a problem as acrylic paint acts as glue too. Enjoy the beautiful results! Don't they look fab?
How have you done your Monet project? Leave a comment below!
Materials required:
- A3 paper cut into a square (I just thought it would look nicer that way)
- leftover rectangular sheets of paper from the A3 sheets that were cut
- acrylic paints (white, red, blue & purple for the water and green, yellow & blue for the lily pad)
- flat brushes
- newspaper
- pre-cut circles of tissue paper in different colours
- pre-drawn circle on construction paper that is smaller than the tissue paper circle
- white glue
- scissors
- diamond beads for the centre of the flower (optional)
Duration: 2 lessons of 80 minutes each
1. To gain an introduction to the artist and his work, we read the story "The Magical Garden of Claude Monet" by Lawrence Anholt. We looked at a variety of Monet's work and focused on his palette of colours and brush strokes. Guiding questions included "In which direction is his brush moving?" "What time of the day do you think it is?" "Name all the colours you can see in the water". As a whole class, we created a huge list on the board of all the colours Monet would use to paint water.
2. We started off by drawing a water lily on our square paper. I gave students a handout with different shaped lily pads that catered to the different ability levels in my class. Once the drawing was done, I collected all their sheets and kept them on my desk.
3. I then gave each student a sheet of newspaper, a small palette with red, white, blue and purple paint, a flat brush, and a rectangular sheet of paper. I told them to start mixing 2 or 3 colours together and see if they could make the same colours as Monet did in his paintings. The trick was to tell them not to wash their brushes in water when they wanted to mix different colours. Instead, I had them clean their brushes on the newspaper. In my opinion this is the most important part if you want beautiful results as you can retain strokes of colour with acrylic paint and the different hues continue to mix even on the paper. When they painted about 5 - 7 different colour swatches, I gave back their drawings of the lily pad and told them to paint the water in with particular emphasis on using brush strokes in the style of the artist. This was the end of the first lesson.
5. I then gave a demonstration on how to paint the lily pad. I showed the students how they could create a different effect with acrylic paint by dabbing their brush up and down. I suppose the same effect could also be achieved with a sponge. Similar to the first lesson, a newspaper was given to each student to clean their brush if they needed to.
6. Lastly, I gave the flowers back to them and they glued it down with white glue. Bear in mind the paint is still wet at this point but it's not a problem as acrylic paint acts as glue too. Enjoy the beautiful results! Don't they look fab?
How have you done your Monet project? Leave a comment below!
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