Nature Drawing for Second Graders

kid looking for a plant

Two weeks ago, planning to go in to my son’s second grade classroom to paint, I looked out the window and was inspired to have them draw plants. I bought a cheap Easter bouquet, picked some crocus in our yard, and dug a few buttercup plants.

All the children drew what they saw, then colored. Several were up for the Challenge project: drawing the buttercups, roots and all. The kids who tried this made lovely, realistic drawings.

One girl discovered that she could draw a daisy by first drawing a circle, and was delighted when I told her, and demonstrated on the board, that this is a trick artists use – to draw the big shapes first.

The teacher told me that most years she takes the kids out to the nature trail next to the school in the fall and teaches them names of some plants and has them draw the plants. This fall she hadn’t had the weather.

Only a few skunk cabbage poking up so far

So we did it the next Friday. It was a lovely dry day, and Keet Gooshi Heen has its own stream and nature trail adjacent to the school. It was wonderful, how interested they were. One girl hadn’t been in the woods much, and was excited to discover the plants. The kids also discovered two plastic Easter eggs left over from a fourth grade hunt.

It just feels so natural, getting kids into the woods, and so heartwarming, seeing them sitting next to a plant, drawing on their clipboard.

Fern-leaved gold thread, a springtime flower of southeast Alaska

It was surprising how much there was to draw. Ferns, spruce, hemlock, lichen, bunchberry, moss had all been there all winter, but the huckleberries and goldthread were in full (teeny tiny) bloom, and the skunk cabbage doing its thing. Deer lily and twisted stalk were unfurling, and salmonberry leaves just emerging.

A drawing of the fern-leaved goldthread

There was no school the next Friday, but this week we will be having them collect leaves – and noticing how much bigger they are – and then making pictures by printing them onto colored paper, using ink or watered down tempera.

Drawings of plants by a second grader

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Still Life of Fruit for Second Graders

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This was the most challenging project to date: to paint a still life of fruit – and to mix colors, and to try to use color complements. The children were a little hesitant at the beginning, but worked hard.

A color’s complement is the color that is opposite on the color wheel; so red’s complement is green, and yellow’s is purple and so on. Any color when it’s placed next to its complement appears brighter and more intense. It’s a great trick for artists of any age.

Probably none of the kids got that far, but each time we’ll talk about that idea. 4th and 5th graders are ready to add more shading, shadows and highlights; they like that. It’s fun to do in the style of Matisse – big dark outlines of things.

This session we looked at pictures of still lifes by Matisse, Van Gogh, and Cezanne, all of fruit. We chose one to talk about, going around with each kid saying what they liked or noticed about the picture.

A Still Life by Henri Matisse

The kids all had tempera paint in primary colors and a paper plate for mixing, as well as brushes, water, and folded paper towels for blotting their brush after washing.

For subject I’d brought in apples, Satsumas, bananas and green pears, and colored cloth napkins.

The kids did great! The one photo of all the work on the bulletin board is funky because we could not get the Promethean Board to move. It knows I wish the district had got projectors instead.

A Still Life by Henri Matisse

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Color for Second Graders

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The project this day, the friday before the last (half) week of school before winter break, was to work on using color to paint about what we like about the holidays.

This is a second-grade class at Keet Gooshi Heen school in Sitka, Alaska. It is a wonderful group of kids – kind and thoughtful and hard workers.

I spent some time finding images and information about Marc Chagall (1887-1985), who was a Russian-born Jewish artist, who took for his main subject his memories of the village where he grew up. His pictures are colorful and full of life. His work is popular, but he also happened to be a major Modern artist, exploring and synthesizing the various movements in Europe before and after WWI.

Marc Chagall's I and the Village, 1911, about 5 by 6 feet, at MoMA

Renoir (an Impressionist painter, 1841-1919) was another artist who came to mind, for joyful, color-filled paintings, so some of those were in the slide show, just for the heck of it.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's painting On the Terrace, 1881, Art Institute of Chicago 39 inches high

Just to save reformatting a slide show, I started with a Kandinsky (1866-1944) slide show from a few weeks ago, and noticed that he was into color and energy too (you don’t say), and that some of his pictures were very similar to Chagall’s. Kandinsky was a contemporary, also born in Russia. In fact, I’ve read that both were inspired by the rich colors of Russian folk art.

So, while the kids were intrigued by the upside-down people and green faces of Chagall, and wondered who the children were in the Renoir pictures, they were unanimous in choosing the picture they wanted to discuss: Kandinsky’s Composition VIII, which is completely abstract – and full of light, and energy, and color.

Kandinsky's Composition viii, 1923, at the Guggenheim.

The kids like the game of finding shapes in the picture, which leads to insight into how the picture works – for example, they found shapes like paintbrushes and pencils, which I think is part of the feeling of potential in  the picture. They noted that many lines seem to be coming out of or going into the circle at upper right. Then there are the circles like suns, or moons. And, the colors. I’d told kids about using complements – colors that are opposite on the color wheel, like purple and yellow – and they found many of these, which also contribute to the bright energy of the picture. It’s also a very large picture, about 5 by 6 feet. I get a feeling of rebirth, potential – kind of like this midwinter Christmas season.

The kids got right into their painting. A few made pictures that are abstract, but most made pictures with a Christmas tree and presents. One little girl planned and made a more involved picture, by first painting the paper dark blue-black, then snow, then a sleigh and a reindeer (Rudolph of course).

I encouraged the children to mix colors, and to use all the paper, and they had such a good time decorating their trees and painting presents.

I think the results are delightful. Christmas is a magical time of year and I think the kids expressed their excitement and pleasure in the upcoming holiday.

Kandinsky’s Composition viii, 1923, at the Guggenheim.

Marc Chagall’s I and the Village, 1911, about 5 by 6 feet, at MoMA

Pierre-August Renoir’s painting On the Terrace, 1881, Art Institute of Chicago 39 inches high

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Kandinsky for Kids

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I recently went into my son’s second grade class with some digital pictures by Wassily Kandinsky, a famous Modern painter born in Russia in 1866. He is known for creating some of the first completely abstract Modern art – art that is not a picture of any thing, but conveys its message purely through color and form.

We then had the kids paint their own abstract paintings, using tempera paint. I had the kids mix colors, but that was the only suggestion. Each piece was unique. This is a neat bunch of kids, very thoughtful and creative.

We listened to music while we painted, classical music from the time Kandinky lived – including a March by Piatigorski, and The Swan from Saint Saens’ Parade of the Animals. We ended with a violin partita by Bach. I’m not sure how much the music affected the children, since the music player was not very powerful and the kids were excited to paint.

Wasilly Kandinsky's painting Composition VII, 1913

Kandinsky painted several giant Compositions (named as if they are music). We went around and said what we liked or noticed in Composition VII, painted in 1913, which is 6 1/2 feet tall and 10 feet wide. The actual painting is in Moscow. It is an incredible picture, and I told the kids how I’d read it is about the Last Judgement, the Resurrection, the Flood, the Garden of Love, basically the end of the world. They loved it.

The children saw ladders, bridges, flowers, suns, hearts and butterflies – the energy, and imagery of war and destruction but also delicate beauty.

Kandinsky saw art as spiritual – that the artist is the prophet of a new age. He “saw” music, which is called synesthesia.

In 1903 Kandinsky painted a small, energetic, expressive, and mysterious picture of a person on a horse, called the Blue Rider, which was taken for the name of a group of painters in the 1900s.

He eventually developed a much more serene way of painting, with geometric shapes – circles, and lines.

Wasilly Kandinsky’s painting Composition VII, 1913

We saw these paintings by Kandkinsky at MoMA on a visit in February. They were painted in 1914.

Some kids paint until they have destroyed the paper

She loved mixing all these interesting colors

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