Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Van Gogh Sunflowers

April showers bring May flowers!
And sunflowers were on sale at Trader Joes!

Many artists used sunflowers in their work.  I showed the kids 2 examples, Van Gogh and Diego Rivera.

Materials needed:
- Pencils
- Oil Pastels
- Vase full of real sunflowers!
- 11x14 brightly colored construction paper

Directions:
1.  First talk about the basic shape of a flower.  We practiced drawing flower middles and flower petals on scrap paper.  We examined the shape and color of the sunflower petals...long and skinny with pointy tips as opposed to wide and round.
2.  Look at the example of Van Gogh's Sunflowers painting, note that the flowers are together in a vase, on a table, now look at the vase on your table, tell the kids that we will draw what we see on our table.
3.  Start by lightly sketching the flower middles, petals, stems and vase.
4.  Add color with oil pastels.
5.  Don't forget to draw the table line.

I helped the littler ones with the basic flower shape.  I would draw 2-3 petals around a flower middle and have them finish drawing the petals, going all the way around.  Then I would draw one side of the vase and have them draw a mirror image on the other side finishing the vase shape.

Everyone's sunflowers were so bright, happy and colorful!  I sent each kid home with their own real sunflower.


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