Posted on March 27, 2017 by BBCo

It’s Spring in Monet’s Garden

Claude Monet, leader of the Impressionist movement, was a masterful gardener. Yes, that's right, gardener. I've been to Monet's garden in France. This artist's garden bursts to life in spring. Spectacular is a small word to describe the grounds. You can read about it in the delightful book, Linnea in Monet's Garden. But you can also experience it through his paintings.

So, on this first day of spring, why not plan a visit to Monet's garden via a "close reading and rendering" of one of his garden paintings? You can learn so much about the art of painting by copying the work of a master. Here is how we did it:

Here's how to paint this painting in two three-hour-sessions:

Session 1

To begin, cover your canvas with a light hue from the painting. While the paint is still very wet, use a clean brush to draw the shapes you see. Let this stage dry completely before proceeding.

Next, mix up a a limited palette of colors in jars that can be sealed so the acrylic paint will not dry out. When mixing colors to match this painting, you will not only mix primary pigments to find the secondary and tertiary colors (red and blue make purple, yellow and blue make green, orange with a hint of red is red-orange and so on), but you will need to experiment with adding a dash of compliments to discover the subtle complexities of Monet's palette. When you add a touch of orange to its opposite, blue, you will discover a lovely iteration of blue. For Monet colors, once you have the hue, you will add white to each color to achieve the lovely pales familiar to this artist. When you have your palette, seal it up for Session 2.

Session 2

Start with laying down the dark blue-green in the negative spaces. Then, while the background is drying, begin to add detail to the lily pads and blossoms with the medium values, loading your brush with different hues and unloading them onto the canvas. Rinse your brush in between color changes. When the background dries (and acrylic dries fairly fast), give it a second coat, allowing the subject of the painting to dry a bit. Continue painting in this manner, paining the light values last. You may need to step back from the paintings to discover missing details. Be careful not to mix colors on canvas while paint is wet or the lovely colors will turn to mud.

It's spring. Take a moment to smell the flowers blooming and be inspired by the fragrance. You never know what you might learn. "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers," said Claude Monet.

-Kim

Posted on January 13, 2017January 25, 2026 by BBCo

Knit / Purl through a Great Story

It all begins with the sheep.

Our Earlybird Winter Discovery Guide’s fourth book, A New coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert is a sweet story that helps readers learn just where a wool coat actually comes from.

A very fun project is to buy some white wool yarn and dye it with kool-aid packets from the market. Invite fellow students over for a learn-to-knit party!

Pick up an Earlybird Winter unit and encourage your students to journal their way through all the wonderful thematic stories.

~Sara

Posted on January 10, 2017 by BBCo

Wintry Lexicon, After Jasper Johns

Where I live there are NEVER snow days (sad face).

But there is ALWAYS white paint!

For this icy, project I decided to introduce the art of Jasper Johns to inspire my apprentice artists. I'm hoping to inspire yours too. We mad a really large, collaborative piece, but this would translate well into an individual work quite nicely. To begin, have your students gather a dozen or more really wonderful, extravagant words—a lexicon for winter.

You will need to gather the following supplies before you begin:

One large sheet of Cardboard (this one is 2' x 3').

A basket of assorted wood, cardboard, or sticker letters, many sizes and many different fonts.

One good pair of sharp scissors (we also used a heavy-duty paper cutter).

One hot glue gun with a large supply of glue.

A large quantity of white acrylic paint and a large paint brush.

Begin with the background, Create geometry using a random, collage technique, layering shapes on top of each other and glueing them to the background using the hot glue gun. When you are satisfied with the background, begin glueing down the words but it is a good idea to lay them all out before glueing to make sure you are satisfied with the placement. Mix and match type-faces, try placing words sideways and upside down. When the cardboard collaging is complete, the fun begins. Slather on a first layer of white paint. Let the coat dry completely then layer on a second coat, and a third! The trick to a really fun end result is to be courageously spontaneous while layering. When you think your done, keep going! Keep layering until the work of art feels snowed in. The you will know its winter.

-Kim

Posted on October 11, 2016 by BBCo

Art of Words

Collagraphy is printmaking process that is related to the art of collage. Do you see the connection between the words? It is sometimes called "relief printing" because the subject to be printed is raised from the print block. You can print anything this way, from fiber to sandpaper, feathers to paperclips.

Stopping to think about the word origin, one comes from the Greek word koala, meaning "glue" and graph, meaning "write". I thought to myself: "Glue…? Write…? …WORDS!"

So our collagraphs were made by glueing words backwards and in reverse onto chipboard to create our print plates. The more words the merrier. Simple enough. From there, the possibilities are endless. Offer a variety fun colors and let students cloud words onto large scale paper in the style of pop artist Sister Corita Kent. The results will surprise you.

-Kim

Posted on September 26, 2016 by BBCo

Head in the Clouds

Before the observing begins, explore the science of clouds. The invisible air around us contains droplets of water we can not see until they mingle above to form a cloud. This formation is the result of warm water on Earth evaporating and condensing in cooler pockets of sky above. We've all interpreted the shape of clouds, but scientists have categorized and named them. There are cirrus clouds and cumulus clouds and others too, and there are variations in many combinations: altostratus, cirrocumulus, cumulonimbus.

Now you are ready to explore. Over the course of many days, observe the sky, making little sketches of what you see. You will discover that no two clouds are alike. Clouds may have similar attributes (puffy, streaked, swirling), but from there, when you look closely and really think about what you are seeing, the similarities disappear.

So how do artists recreate clouds in two-dimensions? They begin just as you've begun, by looking. Using chalk pastels is a fun way to capture the essence of a cloud on paper. Begin by sketching your cloud shape in white, then begin smudging shades of blue in your sky space and tinted white. Sometimes clouds have bits of pink, yellow, blue, even purple, look closely.

With a handful of chalk pastels, a small stack of 3 x 5 rectangles of bristol board, an aerosol of spray fixative (to spray on completed drawings so they won't smudge), pre-cut mat board, and your head in the clouds, you too can create a wonderful little museum of clouds.

Posted on January 25, 2016January 25, 2026 by BBCo

Leonardo’s Big Idea

When Leonardo Da Vinci died he left the world more than 6,000 pages of ideas.

Think revolving bridge, winged glider, or self-propelled car, and you will begin thinking like Leonardo.

Now, think colossal horse, and you will most certainly be moving in the direction of the Renaissance man. Most of us have heard of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but, Il Cavallo? Not so much. Read more here.

So this past week, we gathered to learn more of this marvelous dreamer, and to be inspired by his prolific idea making. And after reading Leonardo’s Horse by Jean Fritz (and ogling over the illustrations by Hudson Talbott), we got to work.

As I tried to imagine the complex engineering of the inner scaffolding, what Leonardo had to consider to create the clay model, let alone the bronze cast, I decided to focus our art making on the bones of sculpting. So from pipe cleaners, pom pons, yarn, and a lump of air drying clay we fashioned our horse.

And what a horse. It’s not Leonardo. No. But it is certainly an inspired idea. And I imagine, this would make Leonardo smile. For he knew, better than most: “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

~Kimberly

Posted on October 14, 2015 by BBCo

Look See: Poem of Spongy Bone

Write a poem incorporating an interesting fact you’ve recently heard or read. It doesn’t necessarily have to be concerned with the physical sciences, although that is a great place to start. Andrea Gibson uses this device in her spoken-word poem, , using lines such as “‘Cause it is a fact that our hearts stop for a millisecond every time we sneeze / And some people’s houses have too much dust” and “It is a fact that bumblebees have hair on their eyes / And humans, also, should comb through everything they see.”

Example:

This Isn’t Happiness

They say that the average person laughs 15 times per day… each time I hear that, I wonder whether that includes the people whose cats have just died or who just spilled coffee on their blouse… I wonder whether if it includes those people who don’t really laugh, but exhale through their noses in unusually quick succession with laughter in their eyes… and I wonder whether those good laughs, the kind that rips your stomach raw and warms your eyes with saltwater, count as two (or maybe fifteen) of the kind of laugh you measure out during irritatingly semi-casual events.

Now, visit our . Can you spring from here to your poem?

-Constance

Posted on October 7, 2015September 6, 2020 by BBCo

The ABCs of Art and the Lively Lines of Picasso

Picasso was a master of line. Check out his . Try to make an owl of your own.

Now, think poetry. One of the significant ABCs of poetry is sound. Try to write a poem using only this one element. Try to repeat one sound throughout your poem, write a poem based on a singlular sound.

Example:

hoo of an owl

frosted stars twinkle

and the hoo of an owl whittles

a tune on shadowy branches

-Kim & Constance

Posted on October 2, 2015 by BBCo

The ABCs of Art and the Oeuvre de Léger

When I teach children to read and write, I begin with the ABCs—phonics to words to phrases to sentences and beyond. The possibilities are limitless.

When I teach children to appreciate and make art, I again begin with ABCs—line, texture, value, shape, and color. Again, the possibilities are limitless.

When it comes to introducing the potential of shape in visual art, French artist, Fernand Léger (1881-1955) is always invited to the Guild.

In art, we begin by looking. And for this Léger lesson we looked at one of his wonderful "studies" titled, Étude Pour L' Anniversaire, 1950 (pen and ink on paper):

And after a thorough session of looking and discussing all the wonderful integrated shapes, the drawing began:

The strokes were sketchy at first, until the apprentices were satisfied that their shapes echoed the original work.

Next, we inked in the drawing, erasing pencil lines as we went.

When the observing, sketching, and inking was completed, we stood back from our studies and discussed what happens next by exploring Léger works related to his study:

L’ Anniversaire, 1950 (gouache on paper)

Birthday, Two Women, 1950 (oil on canvas)

-Kim

Posted on May 28, 2015September 6, 2020 by BBCo

Moths of Summer

In the scheme of biological classification, butterflies and moths fall into the Order we call Lepidoptera. Typically speaking, butterflies are brightly colored diurnal creatures. Moths are nocturnal and lackluster. But there are some exceptions. Leave it to Van Gogh to lend his artistic curiosity to the Great Peacock Moth that began with a sketch, and ended in a painting.

We began with a close observation of the artists palate, imitating each color with acrylic paint. We stored the colors in pint-sized mason jars knowing that the paintings could not be accomplished in one sitting.

The apprentice painters began by lightly sketching the composition in pencil on canvas, all the while marveling at Van Gogh’s marvelous composition.

Next came the brushes, the paint. The artists began with the lighter colors, blocking in the delightfully organic shapes, until layer upon layer, the moth began to emerge in its surroundings. The last colors to be painted were the deep blue-green outlines and the popping crimson accents.

I’d like to imagine Van Gogh smiling.

Metamorphosis is transformation.

-Kim