Laurel Burch Cats

Laurel Burch was a self-taught American painter/folk artist.

She died young at age 62 from a bone disease but even during the time when she was sick and had to paint in bed or from her wheelchair, she never stopped creating.  She said, "I refuse to have anything in my life that I can't turn around into something magical and beautiful.  I just refuse."

She has a great imagination.  Joy and happiness came through in her paintings with her bold lines and bright colors.  Her cats are so fun and whimsical!  My students love her work and they made some great versions of their own cats too!  Check this out...

Materials needed:

-White paper

-Colored paper (We had a pad of donated scrapbooking paper that had awesome colors and patterns)

-Crayons

-Scissors

-Glue

Directions:

1.  Students followed my step by step instructions for drawing the cat face.  (step by step tutorial coming soon)

2.  Color in the cat face, encourage different bright colors

3.  Select 2 fun pieces of colored paper, fold them into a triangle and cut them in half.

4.  Glue 2 halves onto a whole piece (this is your background)

5.  Cut out the cat face and glue it on the background

6.  Add lines, whiskers, and anything you feel it needs.

Hundertwasser's Neigborhood

This great idea I got from -
http://mrspicassosartroom.blogspot.com/

Thanks for the idea!  It turned out great!

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian painter and architect.  He was influenced by Kilmt, Gaudi, nature, spirals, metals and colors!  

Chicago has so many awesome neighborhoods and we have students from all over the city.  This was a fun project for the kids and the parents LOVED it too!  I encouraged them to draw specific buildings near them, include Lake Michigan, playgrounds, their school, and each drawing featured their home, whether it's a house or an apartment building or a high-rise, in the middle.

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.