Starry Night

I love art, I love painting, and I mostly love teaching it. We studied Van Gogh's life, and some of his paintings until we studied, Starry Night. Then, with their seats separated, my students painted just the sky, for an HOUR! Yep, no talking, just painting, curves and curves of blue. Layer after layer, dash after dash. I kept reminding them, "wind can't come from the middle of the sky, start it from off the page."




I supposed many teachers use art time as a time of just lazy fun for the kids...but not me, which is why I said it is mostly fun teaching it. I am very serious about teaching art. I taught the students brush technique and how to lay the paint, how to move the brush, how to mix paint, how to look at the original and then quickly back to your own painting. I take art seriously, and I expect the same. Don't get me wrong, its still fun, they absolutely LOVED it....but if a student wasn't following directions, I kindly showed them the proper way on their own paper. :-)

The next day we added the moon and the stars. Special curved-dashed of mixed color makes it look like they are really shining int our dark, windy skies.





The next day we finished the hillside and the town. With carefully placed flecks of yellow, it almost looks as if their are people inside the little cottages, finishing up their evening reading.

The paintings will be in our school's art show, so I'll take a final picture then and put it up for you guys to see, but they really turned out great!



YAY ART DAY!