Teach Art to Your Children v 1.2

Artwork: Pablo Picasso- Blue Period

When I was searching for this week's art lesson, I came across a lesson for older children in which they drew self portraits a la Pablo Picasso..while thinking of how I could tune that down a notch for a 5 year old, I decided that I would teach a little color theory and continue with the pastel blending from last week.

We started the lesson today remembering what we learned in last week's lesson: Symmetry and Color Mixing. We noticed how Picasso's drawings are not symmetrical and how the blue paintings make us feel sad. I then questioned my daughter and asked her what colors make her feel happy? I got the correct response: pink, orange, yellow..this wasn't going to be as hard as I thought.

We started drawing in a Strathmore Visual Art Journal so that the lessons would all be kept in one place. For the first part of "class" we drew using only blue. I emphasized that the paper should be totally full...like a painting, with no white paper showing. This took some time to get used to because my daughter is used to cranking out drawings on white backgrounds.

After she had filled the entire paper with shades of blue, I opened up the color palette so that she could draw a colorful picture. For some reason, it was much easier for her to completely fill the colorful paper than the all blue painting.. It might have been that she had one "full" painting under her belt already...or maybe that there were more colors to choose from...

Artwork: Pablo Picasso

So this week, you can mention Picasso (we watched a slide show I made from Google images) and his blue period..possibly introduce an art journal and talk about the opposite of "symmetry". Mention a little color theory too... enjoy!

Thank you for your compliments on this series! I hope that you are spending some quality art time with your children, grandchildren or neighbors.

xo