Discovery Art: Marcus Pfister

I'm a fan of Marcus Pfister. When I was working in a children's bookstore, he came once to talk to the kids and sign books. He also showed us all how to draw Penguin Pete and was just generally so charming and wonderful that I have been a huge fan ever since. 

Regardless of personal opinions on the Rainbow Fish, the sparkle paper is certainly eye-catching and fun to work with so I decided to have one of our art programs focus on Marcus Pfister. This one was particularly good for me because it worked for my preschool artists (Preschool Explorers) and my afterschool art club (Discovery Art).

First, we read "The Rainbow Fish" and talked about how the illustrations were made. I pulled out a few more Marcus Pfister books and we looked at how he made his watercolors and what he chose to highlight with sparkle. 

Then it was our turn! 

I set out paper, pencils, watercolors, and paintbrushes for the painting part. They could draw and watercolor over it or just paint free-form. I also had glitter foam and scissors so they could cut out the shape of what they wanted to highlight and stick the glitter foam right to their painting. 

 

First we paint!

Then we add glitter parts!

 

 

 

All in all, it worked out pretty well. I think the dot art was a little better overall as some of the kids struggled to come up with ideas of what to paint, but the results shiny and the kids had fun and checked out Marcus Pfister books, so I'm satisfied.