Despite spring being several weeks late, our woods is beginning to come alive with beauty and life! I went out last week to collect photos and samples for this week's first spring nature journaling class and was delighted to find six different varieties of flowers in bloom.
Here is the Bloodroot:
And the Cutleaf Toothwort:
And the Spring Beauty with its delicate pink petals and stamens:
After a two week break it was great to get back into classes with the children who attend. I had many first-timers this class and its fun to break out the supplies and the brand new paint kits!
Our first exercise was creating a personal "spring palette" of colors we thought we would use for painting spring. Our paint boxes have only six colors, but the options for mixing and creating are endless. Here was my palette:
Sample journal page:
We talked about positive and negative painting this week -- negative painting is one way to deal with white or pale flowers. The kids really caught onto this idea.
I challenged the older kids and adults to come up with at least five different greens, preferably more. This student was brilliant!
The Bloodroot was by far the most popular flower on the table for painting! It really is a striking specimen with a single, large leaf and a beautiful, symmetrical bloom. The best part is the blood red root which is large and "bleeds" rust-colored juice. The Native Americans used the juice as a dye or paint.
The root definitely intrigued the boys!
It always makes me extra happy to see any work students have done throughout the week!!! One of the adults had this gorgeous page in their book!
Look at the colors here! Red roots, green leaf, and that wonderful negative painting which makes the white bloom just pop right off of the page!
Another version of the Bloodroot.
I walked over to see this student (our youngest) having drawn such a good interpretation of the Harbinger of Spring complete with negative painting! This was her first day in this type of class and I was so impressed!
It was too cold for us to attempt a nature hike this past week -- hoping the weather predictions hold out and we can try again this week!
1 comment:
This is a wonderful post; I truly enjoyed it :) Many years ago I was asked to teach 5th & 6th grade art at a Christian school in our town. It was a delightful experience and I have memories that I will always treasure from working with these children.
This is my first visit to your blog. I am so happy that I found it.
Connie :)
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