Art with Kids {Claude Monet}

February 5, 2014

You guys were hurting me with all your 6D comments yesterday! I spent several months debating between the 6D and the XPro-1. Chris, I am sure, was going crazy listening to me every night. I think he was relieved when I finally made a choice. Poor guy now has to listen to me wrestling with my decision again! I will be buying a new DSLR soon – I teach classes on DSLRs, so it is kind of crucial I have one too! It was good to hear all of your feedback on the 6D. Thank you.

So the kids and I did a little Claude Monet study yesterday. I read them this quote by Monet, “I would like to paint the way a bird sings.” We talked about his quote, artwork, inspiration and the historical significance of his art (in kid terms). Then we pulled out Q-Tips to create our own landscape paintings. Typically, we paint with brushes. I was trying to get them to understand how Monet used small strokes. Q-Tips do not hold much paint, so they work well for helping them learn to use small strokes.

The 4 oldest each have art journals. I try to keep all of our art projects in these instead of loose paper. It makes storage a little easier. They doodle on paper, but the journals are for our more intentional artwork. I need to get Little One her own now that she is more interested in joining in the fun.

Ideally, we would have done this project outside on a beautiful day. It was sleeting and below freezing, so I pulled up a random mountain photograph online that reminded me of a Monet style painting. The kids each created their own version.