Monet's Waterlillies

Inspired by Monet's Waterlillies paintings, we wanted to create our own!

Materials needed:

-Heavy weight water color paper

-Tempera paint, only blues, greens, and white for mixing

-Paint brushes

-Green construction paper

-Tissue paper

-Pencils

-Glue

Directions:

1.  Show examples of Monet's Waterlillies.  Talk about the softness of the paintings, soft edges, soft colors.

2.  Have the students paint the water first.  Encourage color mixing; shades of blues, greens.

3.  While the paper is drying, have students draw and cut out 3 lily pads.  You can offer them a template to trace, if needed. 

4.  For the lily pad flowers, have little scraps of tissue paper that students can wrap around the eraser end of a pencil, dip in a little glue and then stick it to the middle of the lily pad.   A few tissue paper flowers per lily pad is perfect.

5.  Once painting is dry, then glue the lily pads to the painting and voila!   A mini-masterpiece!

Fall Leaf Centerpiece

Just in time for Thanksgiving dinner...this wonderful fall leaf inspired centerpiece!

Materials needed:

For Leaves
- Watercolor paper
- BLEEDING tissue paper, cut up in squares, using only fall colors
- Paintbrushes
-Cups of water
-Leaf templates
-Pencils
-Scissors
- Sticks
- Hot glue


For Pots
- Tempera or Acrylic Paint in fall colors
- Paintbrushes
- Marbles or rocks (to weigh down the pots)
- Spanish moss

Directions:
1. To create the leaves, start with one big piece of watercolor paper and place squares of the bleeding tissue paper, overlapping pieces, using a brush dipped in water to temporarily "glue" them onto the paper.  The water is what transfers the color off the tissue onto the watercolor paper so make sure the kids make it wet enough!
2.  Once the entire piece of watercolor paper in covered in tissue paper squares, gently remove all the tissue paper.  (it's okay if the paper is not dry yet)  The kids love this part.
3.  Once paper is dry, trace as many leaf templates onto the paper then cut out the leaf shape.
4.  Hot glue the stick intbetween 2 paper leaves and stick it in the pot!

Dia de Los Muertos

Dia de los Muertos  - Day of the Dead is a holiday celebrated in Mexico in the beginning of November.
It's a fun party celebrating the lives and honoring those who have passed away.

Using BIG black contruction paper and chalk pastels we make these colorful skulls.