This is one of my absolute FAVORITE art lessons!
It incorporates focusing on (5) of the 7 elements of art – (Line, Shape, Color, Form, and Texture) and is inspired by artist Claude Monet and his beautiful water lily paintings. This lesson took (5) 40 minute art classes to complete.
Read below student artwork to see the steps on how we created them, as well as view my YouTube tutorial!
DAY 1:
Students learned about Claude Monet and looked at a slideshow of some of his paintings- Especially (of course ) his water lilies!
Then they painted a sheet of 12×18” tagboard with magenta liquid watercolors.
Students also viewed a fun video on Monet once paintings were set aside to dry. This is the video they watched below.
DAY 2:
Students painted a sheet of 10×10” tagboard with turquoise liquid watercolors, and sprinkled salt on the paintings while still wet. This becomes the water background for the water lily. The salt creates a sort of “resist technique” soaking up the bits of blue watercolor paint and once dry, leaves a bit of white– Making it look like light is reflecting off of the water.
We talked about how Monet (and other Impressionist painters) tried to capture a sense of light within their paintings.
These paintings were set aside to dry. Then students cut out the petal tracers I provided, which were printed on a sheet of cardstock. The 3 petals (1 large, 1 medium and 1 small) were cut out, then each size petal was traced 6 times, resulting in 18 petals total on their magenta painted papers.
Last year, when I created this lesson, I for some reason traced all 18 petals on EVERYONE’S pink painted papers for them to cut out???!!! Glad I decided to have them cut and trace out their own this year!
I demonstrated to make sure they were traced nice and snug next to one another so all 18 would fit. And to make sure all the Large petals were in one row then mediums in 1 row below the large and the smalls all in one row.
DAY 3:
Students created their lily pad on a sheet of 10×10” 80# drawing paper. They did this by filling in a drawn circle on the paper with layers of green and yellow pre-cut tissue paper and watered down white glue, overlapping each piece. Glue was applied to an area first, then a piece of tissue, then another layer of glue. Glue was brushed on after each piece of tissue to ensure they laid nice and flat.
I showed students how they could “pick up” 1 piece of tissue at a time, without using their sticky fingers by using their “gluey” paint brush and touching it to the tissue.
The lily pads were set aside to dry and for some classes that had some time left over, I read them this great story about Monet below! It’s a lovely story with wonderful illustrations!
DAY 4:
Students cut out their green lily pad and then cut out a triangle from the circle. This was then glued down onto their blue painted paper with a glue stick. (I rubbed off all the salt from the blue paintings once dry, ahead of time and pressed them between stacks of paper to make them flat before they did this step). A lot of glue is needed here and kids pressed down for 5 seconds to ensure it laid flat and adhered to the painting.
Then, after setting aside, students cut out their traced flower petals. They cut out all the large’s first, then medium’s, then small’s– making sure to paper clip each size together and labeled “L”, “M”, or “S” on the back of the paper-clipped petal bunch.
These were then saved in individual zip lock baggies and students wrote their name and class with sharpie on the bag for the next class.
DAY 5:
Assemble the flower!
Students finish cutting out petals (if needed) then glue down all the large petals first, then medium, then small.
I used tacky glue (pictured below) for this step. I love how easy the glue bottles are when squeezing, and the glue dries clear once dry. It also “grabs” onto the petals quickly. I bought them in packs of 5 at A.C. Moore for around $5. I also bought larger bottles.
I show students under the document camera, how to apply a dot of glue about the size of a pea, and stack the fish “tail” of each petal (we talked about how the shape of the petals looked like fish) right on top of each other– like making a sandwich –stacking the next rectangular fish tail over the previous one each time.
After each petal “fishtail” is held in place with a dab of glue for 5 seconds, students then held the tail down with one finger while bending and pressing the petals tip back to create the 3D element in the flowers petals, and makes the petals stick out.
Once ALL the petals were attached they rolled up a piece of pre-cut yellow felt fringe and glued it to the flowers center. I pre-cut 8″ x 1.5″ pieces of yellow felt and cut the fringe ahead of time for students. Students rolled their strip of fringe TIGHTLY! and then applied a lot of glue (using the same tacky glue as the petals) to the end and then a bit on the flowers center, before pressing and holding down for 20-30 seconds. If there is any extra glue coming out from the bottom, don’t worry about it because the glue dries clear as mentioned before.
And there you have it!!!
These beauties went up on the wall for display as soon as they were dry! (I like to let them dry overnight -or at least a few hours just in case).
Here’s my YouTube tutorial on this lesson below!
If your’e wondering what students are working on for the reaminder of the year (yikes only 3 or so art classes left!!) here it is!
1st Grade– Watermelon Weavings (new lesson!)
2nd Grade– Springtime Bunny, Bear OR Fox! (To view previous art on this lesson from last year, click on “2nd Grade Art Lessons” under the main menu and scroll down)
3rd Grade– Matisse Inspired Organic Shapes Collage (to view previous art on this lesson, click on “3rd Grade Art Lessons” under the main menu and scroll down)
4th Grade– Georgia O’Keeffe inspired “Enlarged Flower Drawings” (and ditto- check out previous flower drawings by going on their webpage and scrolling down)
5th Grade– Grid Drawings inspired by artist Chuck Close (yep, you got it- check out previous artwork by students under “5th Grade Art Lessons” and scrolling down!)
Thanks so much for stopping by! I’ll be posting again VERY sooooon!