Preschool Art: Keith Haring

For this session of Preschool Explorers, we talked about Keith Haring and his artwork. Caveat: you need big big paper. I happened to have some rolls that someone donated, so I was set, but without those rolls this would not have been possible. 

First, we read books by Keith Haring. I read Ten and Big. We talked about the dancing figures and what they might be doing and we tried to twist our bodies into the same positions (hilarity ensued). 

We also looked at some of the drawings in I Wish I Didn't have to Sleep. 

This book is fascinating and asking the kids what they think the painting means is a treat. 

Then it was our turn! 

I rolled out the big paper so each kid could have a piece. They lay down and their grown-up companion traced their outline. Then the kids decorated themselves with all sorts of crafty odds and ends that I provided.  

I had hoped more of them would choose interested positions, but most of them just lay down and used that shape. 

Here are some of the results (in varying stages of done-ness):

The parents particularly loved this session and there was talk about hanging the results on bedroom walls. I saw some parents write the date on the sheet so they could compare the size as their preschooler grew (and we all know that happens way too fast....). 

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. 

Preschool Art / Discovery Club: Dot Art

It was Art Week with my Preschool/Afterschool program, and I decided to explore pointillism.

Inspired by this and by this, I first did the program with my preschoolers in the morning and then with the older kids after school.

For the preschoolers:

I read "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds, which honestly may have gone over the kids' heads a little bit, but they were attentive and we all took time to pick out our favorite dot in Vashti's art show.

Then I took out some books with examples of pointillism - mostly Seurat. We talked about how big the Grande Jatte painting actually is and discussed how the painting would look if you were very close to it (all dots). This led to several minutes of the kids trying to bring the book close to their faces to see if they could see the dots. Not sure if this was totally effective, but what the heck. 

Then we painted our own dots!

There were two stations for this project. At one, the kids could use qtips or pompoms held with clothespins to paint dots. 

Paint plates ready to go!

I handed out blank pieces of paper for those who were inspired, but I also gave out two templates (a tree and an egg) in case they wanted to paint those instead.

The second station for the preschoolers was much more process art than the first and I basically did it because it sounded like so much fun that I couldn't resist. I allowed myself the loose tie-in of "painting with round things."

I have several empty baby formula cans, so for this project we put half sheets of paper into the cans, squirted some paint inside, dropped in some pom poms, closed it nice and tight (very important!) and shook shook shook it! 

All the necessary ingredients.

The results!

For my afternoon Discovery Club, we started in much the same way. We read The Dot, declared a favorite dot in Vashti's display, and talked about Seurat. The conversation was a little more in-depth this time, but they still tried to look very closely at the book. (Maybe I should do a Magic Eye program....). 

The older kids also got blank papers, eggs, and trees, but for them I printed out a simple landscape (from a free coloring page website) that they could fill in with dots. They got q-tips to paint with, but no pompoms this time around! 

The results were varied and wonderful. I found this program was one of the easiest to scale up and down for preschool and for the afterschool crowd. Everyone painted according to their ability and taste and everyone was proud of their masterpieces.