Painting still life like Cezanne
Our first class went SO well. Mess was minimal, the art was beautiful, and I only made one child almost cry.
I told the class we have three rules (also adapted from teachkidsart)
1. No saying “I can’t do it”, you have to TRY
2. Only kind words, about your friends art and about your art. We talked about how Cezanne had friends who supported him in learning to be an artist, and how we want to paint like him, so we are going to be supportive of each other!
3. Don’t get up from the table…… because I really, really, really did not want paint everywhere!
This is where I got in trouble with one wonderful little girl. She ran into a snag on her picture because she had made the fruit small, and she had a large sheet of construction paper. I had asked the kids to try to fill every space on their papers with color and paint. She sighed, saying this was “Impossible!”- to which I responded, “Oh! That’s against the rules! We have to always try, it’s not impossible!”….. And she all of a sudden turned to a pile of little girl mush. I felt AWFUL!
I gave her a sponge to help cover more space, and I told her how well she was doing (and really, she was doing amazingly well), but for the rest of the class she was upset. I am a mother of BOYS, I know nothing of sensitive girls! At home, I would have just made a fart joke, and the child would forgive and forget. But a girl apparently is a whole different monster. I guess I need to prepare for that before Miss Em gets too much bigger!
Anyways- other than that one snag, everything turned out wonderful! Check out our Art!
I was totally with you on the, “What do we do now?” feeling after the sweet little girl turned to mush…. Just for the record, you weren’t harsh, she was just a tender little thing. Something I know nothing about in my house. Fart jokes rule.