Finger painting!! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. :) Fourth graders studied the art and style of Vincent Van Gogh, specifically his sunflower paintings. No matter how many times we discuss the life of Van Gogh, the students are so fascinated by him that we end up spending the art period just talking about him. It may push our project a little further along, but what art teacher would want to stop genuine conversation about an artist?! The students examined many of Van Gogh's sunflower prints. The most important characteristic they identified was the textural quality of his work.
First, the students drew the sunflowers with black crayon on white paper while looking at the Van Gogh prints. Most students drew the head of the sunflowers facing the viewer. For me, the most important part of this art lesson was texture, so I didn't sweat too much about the kids not showing other flower viewpoints.
Next, the students used tempera paint and their fingers to apply the paint. I stressed leaving texture on the paper and not smoothing out the paint. This was definitely harder for some of them than I thought it would be. When the students painted the petals, I told them to paint them like little pieces of candy corn, and then we blended the colors together a little bit.
Once the paint was dry, the students emphasized the texture of the paint by taking a peeled crayon and gently rubbing the crayon over the tempera paint. Lastly, they outlined everything with black oil pastel.
