…. the children produced beautiful pieces of art

After last Thursday’s disaster with my art cart I spread out the latest finished pieces of art and took joy in the freedom and beauty of my students’ ‘masterpieces’.

My inspiration came from the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. I love the message in this simply but beautifully illustrated picture book. The main character Vashti laments over the fact that she can’t draw and her teacher encourages her to make a mark on her paper and see where it takes her. She jabs the paper with her marker and makes one small dot. Her teacher makes her sign it and when she arrives for the next art class she discovers that her dot has been framed. She is moved to improve on her dot and she begins to experiment with dots of all sizes.

I knew that I wanted to share this story with my students to encourage them to take pride in their work and take ownership for it by signing it.

While browsing the web I’ve come across some great art blogs and I found one that gave me the idea for this next project. Pamela Holderman’s blog has a great project where the children paint circles using lots of colour. They can add collage, stamps, and add detail with marker. When each child has finished their piece it is cut into 4 equal squares and they keep one and share the other 3 squares with their classmates. Then they put the 4 pieces together to create a new piece of art and they continue adding more personal touches.

When I wanted to start this project I discovered that I didn’t have enough sheets of large paper for painting but I did have small squares of watercolour paper. I cut them all to 7 x 7 and I had each child make one circle piece of art that they could keep. It was a great way for them to experiment with the paints, markers and stamps. When we’re ready to do the larger piece for our cooperative art piece they will be more confident and less reluctant to share their work (hopefully).

Every piece is different and when put together they make a beautiful wall quilt. I think that’s how I’m going to display them outside the classroom.

These were done by my grade 3 class.