For our final Wonderful Wednesday we studied the work of Claude Monet. Monet was a French painter whose work was the starting place for the impressionist movement. Monet felt that nature did not have strong lines and used paint to create beautifully colorful and energetic pieces of work. Monet was especially talented at capturing light and movement in a natural setting. Impressionism was all about preserving a fleeting moment in time.

After looking at some examples of Monet's work, we made a painting in the style of one of his most famous works, 'Bridge Over a Pool of Water Lilies'. The purpose of doing this with children is not to copy the work of another artist, but to become familiar with the style of painting that artist uses. Then the children can apply this style to their own work, giving them a larger repertoire of tools from which to work with.

In addition to art, we also had plenty of outside time and of course, water play!

A great time was had by all this summer. Now we are getting ready for the start of our 18th year at COLCMS. We'll see you in a few weeks!

This Wednesday, we learned about English sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy. Did you know that instead of using a paintbrush and canvas, Goldsworthy uses things from nature and his bare hands to create his art? He makes beautiful site-specific sculptures using rocks, beautiful fall leaves, flowers, twigs and more to build his creations.

Goldsworthy uses elements of repetition and balance to create his sculptures. We decided to start our morning with a nature hike and create our own Goldsworthy-esque sculptures outside.

The children were eager to create their own sculptures on the benches in the outdoor amphitheater.

Here are a few of the final sculptures!

We decided it was time to hike back inside to get ready for snack.

Today we used our blueberries, strawberries, banana slices and pretzels to create more Goldsworthy inspired creations before eating them.

Then we headed outside for some garden time before coming in to do our art project.

For our take home art project, we made our own creations using pasta and beans demonstrating Goldsworthy's elements of resourcefulness, pattern and design.

And then, of course, it was time to head outside once more for water play!

A great time was had by all and we'll see you next Wednesday for our last Wonderful Wednesday of the summer!

This week, we focused on learning about French painter, Henri Matisse. To start our day, we played in the garden. And since we had so much rain last night, water play started early.

After our fun in the garden, we came in to have snack. Today, we had roll-ups with cheese, blueberries and watermelon. The children loved using cookie cutters to make shapes with their cheese and roll-ups!

Once we were done with our snack, we moved on to talking about Matisse. Did you know that he started painting when he was sick one day at home? His mother was trying to keep him busy and it turned into his career! He painted in many different places and enjoyed painting people.

Our first art project was Fauve based. Fauvism was a movement of a group of artists with similar ideas and loved to paint landscapes, in particular, using colors much different from how they really appeared. So, on one side of our paper, we painted a tree as we might see it outside with a brown trunk and green leaves. On the other side of the paper, we painted the same tree with wildly vibrant colors--some chose to make the trunk orange and the leaves purple!

Our second art project is a personal favorite! I love the "Snail" print by Matisse. At first glance, it looks like a lovely collage, but if you look closer there is a little surprise! In the top left corner is a very tiny purple snail! And the print itself has a spiral feel, just like the spiral of a snail shell.

Matisse created "The Snail" as one of his last art prints when he was over 80 years old. He was not feeling well enough to paint, but did feel well enough to cut shapes out of paper and arrange them into new designs. He called it "drawing with scissors" and this is where modern day collage stemmed from.

Then, it was time to go outside for water play! We were very grateful that the sun came out just long enough for us to play.

See you next Wednesday!!