Van Gogh chimes in, celebrating Da Vinci Summer II:
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

Can’t make it to the art museum this summer? Well, create your own museum at home!

This is a perfect impromptu activity for the patio or driveway. All you need is space, inexpensive sidewalk chalk, a box of chalk pastels in a lovely range of colors…and a bunch of friends.

What’s great about this project is that you get to own an original installation of art until you decide to have the artists close the exhibition with a few squirts of the hose!

Step 1
Prepare the surface using inexpensive sidewalk chalk. We used white because Van Gogh’s sunflowers are bright.

Step 2
Draw what you see. This is a terrific opportunity to practice observation skills.

Step 3
Color in the negative space (the background). Begin with colors slightly darker than the painting you are copying. This will add depth to the finished work.

Step 4
Begin to fill in the details. As you do, be sure to experiment with colors. Don’t use a single color. Use a range of analogous colors (colors that are neighbors on a color wheel) to simulate the rich layering that a painter such as Van Gogh might use.

Step 5
Layer and layer until your composition is complete.

Step 6
Make some lemonade and invite the neighborhood to your very own street painting festival.

Most of all… enjoy the process!

Last week Søren decided to copy a Van Gogh drawing. He pulled out a sketchbook, sharpened some pencils and spent an hour studying line and texture, shape and value.

The result is stunning.

This reminded me of the wonderful creative journey my friend Sandra set her son, Joshua, on a challenge to “Draw 100 Faces.”

And so, the challenge is on. Only for Søren, the challenge verbiage has been transformed, “Make a book. Not just any book. Make a book of 100 heads.”

Some of the heads will be studies of famous artist’s drawings. He started with Van Gogh. He moved on to Paul Klee. Tomorrow he might try Da Vinci.

Some of the heads will be drawings from life. Today Søren drew himself.

But some of the heads will be straight from Søren’s imagination. These are the drawings I am especially looking forward to.

The goal is a drawing a day for 100 days.

And the reward?

Why, the book of course.

– Kim

A great story has something for everyone.

As a kid, I was jealous of Claudia. I mean what girl wouldn't want to stowaway in an art museum? And not just any art museum, we're talking the Met! 

“Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her pack. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere.”

This is the precise passage that captured my imagination as a young reader, and if I am being honest, it still intrigues me. In fact, I spend my days encouraging my students to grab hold of this concept of “running to somewhere.”

When we mentor with books, great characters, like Claudia, give young readers a reason to press into their imagination.

“Some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up and touch everything. If you never let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you.”  — E.L. Konigsburg   

This past year, I explored The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler again with my 5th grade reading circle—five boys. It was fun to watch them connect with different aspects of the story. While they unanimously disliked Claudia (she's a girl after all), they identified with Jamie. My youngest son Søren had this to say, “I liked the mysterious statue. Remember when Claudia and Jaime snuck a peak of the angel? I liked that part mom.”

I could not help but smile when my budding artist decided to sculpt an angel in the style of Michelangelo for his culminating project. Søren's imagination was not sparked in the same way that mine was as a child and this is a good thing, is precisely what I love about great stories. 

So Søren dove into what inspired him, found a Michelangelo(ish) image on his own to fashion his sculpture after. I did not have the heart to tell him that it is not a Michaelangelo in the midst of his creative process. I am glad that he discovered this on his own when he decided to do some research on the angel like Claudia and Jamie who went before him.

Now I know there is bias here, but in the end, I believe Soren's original work of art made of aluminum foil and paper towels surpasses the work being studied!

Søren's buddies thought his angel a masterful work of art. They even checked the base of his statue, just to make sure it was not a Michelangelo!

– Kim