Lesson 17 - Claude Monet Painting Reflections

      

 Lesson 17 - Claude Monet Painting Reflections

Today we learned about reflection and how to apply that concept in artwork. We first looked at our own reflections in a mirror, then we talked about Claude Monet, an impressionist painter, and how he loved to paint nature scenes outdoors, very quickly, capturing the light on his subjects in the moment, without too much detail. Monet loved the sea and painted many pictures of water scenes, utilizing the reflection technique in his work.

We began our lesson by drawing a scene on a light blue piece of paper. The children were able to use chalk, watercolor paints or colored pencils, or a combination of each. Many children used paint as their primary medium, with chalk added on.

When their picture was completed,  they took a dark blue piece of paper, sprayed both pieces with water (which of course, was their favorite part), placed the dark blue paper over the light blue, and rubbed the top sheet so that the artwork transferred onto the new sheet. This created a reflection of their original artwork onto the dark blue paper. When the paper was unfolded, the children saw an upside down replica of their original art on the new sheet of paper. We then taped the pieces together so that the original light blue sheet was above the dark blue sheet.

We also talked about how any reflection is usually an upside down image of the original work,  and the scene that was reflected onto the dark blue paper was an exact upside down replica of their original artwork.

Reflection was the key word we learned today, and how an artist uses this technique in his/her  artwork.