The Arts Teach Children...

...That problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

As we all know, school budgets are tight, scarce, dwindling.  Texas schools are no exception, even in our little town.  Our little town has awesome schools and does provide everything that we could imagine for our public school children.  Except art.  Our children will get art in January.  The school budgets have left little for art and art teachers so we have to settle with getting art for only half a school year.  Art can not compete with practical intelligences like math and science, nor can it compete with football.  (You know what they say- in Texas, football is a religion.)

What do we do as parents?  We can advocate for art programs and make sure that we vote on issues that allocate our funds to artistic educational programs including music.  It's not easy, people are stingy when it comes to spending money when they are convinced there are no benefits.  It's also not easy when we live in a system that believes that standardized testing is the only way to measure intelligence and achievements, in students and teachers.  Join the PTO.  The PTO gets ya in on the low down with teachers, administration, other parents who have influence on decisions that effects our children's education.

OK, enough of that.  

Let's do it the fun way and just teach a bit o art to our children at home.  Every week me and the girls learn about a master or learn a technique or explore a new medium or just plain create.  I'm gonna start sharing them here with you in case you'd like to join in.  My disclaimer:  I'm not an art major and I'm just winging it.  :)

This weeks lesson:  Watercolor

I picked two artists- Georgia O'Keefe and Winslow Homer.  I did not make this a history lesson because zzzzzzz.  We just covered the basics.  

While looking at art from the two artists (use Google Images)- What do you think each of them like to paint most?  What pops out when you look at O'Keefe's work?  Homer's work?  Etc.

Then I introduced basic art terminology- foreground, middle ground, and background (why is middle ground the only one that doesn't get to be a compound word?)  We tried to remember these when we started painting.

Then I introduced the three techniques for painting with watercolors- wet on wet, dry on dry, and wet on dry.

Then I gave them a prompt- pumpkins.

Then we painted.

 

Supplies- watercolors, brushes, watercolor paper, cup of water, towel, tray for catching messes 

Additional information:

http://www.keepartsinschools.org/

http://www.cae-nyc.org/

http://www.teachartathome.com/lessons.html

http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/category/grade-levels/third-grade-art-lessons/

http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/search/label/watercolor

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Next week we explore Vincent Van Gogh!