Lesson 18 - Shimmering sky - Monet

We are still studying the impressionists, so today we looked at another painting technique used by Monet, the shimmering sky in his painting “The Stroll”.  This technique incorporates a kaleidoscope of colors that give a textural and realistic look to the scene. This same technique is also used in landscapes on white canvas or paper. We learned how to make a “resist”, which consists of rubbing a waxy or grease based crayon or pastel on to paper, then painting over it with water colors. The waxy substance, in  this case a white crayon on white paper, will repel or resist the paint. We used the resist technique by drawing clouds on our white paper using a white crayon. At first, the children were a bit perplexed, wondering why we were drawing something we could not see. After they used the watercolor to paint their sky (via a brush or a sponge),  the white crayon clouds came through the paint. The harder they pressed when initially drawing their clouds, the more apparent the clouds became. This was by far the favorite activity of the lesson.

For the rest of our painting, we painted (some children drew in crayon) our hilltop, similar to Monet, trying to use multiple color hues to show light.  To learn about shadow (the third phase of the lesson), we first looked at our own shadows in the classroom while the morning sun was streaming through the window. We talked about the differences between shadow and reflection, recalling last weeks lesson, and we learned how to create shadow on our painting.  We were able to use pre-cut house and tree shapes. The children glued these on their hillside, then used black or brown crayon (or paint) to make the shadow underneath the building.

Of course, as art is very subjective, the children used their imagination, and many had a more abstract rendition, some even combining the green of the hilltop with the blue, orange, and yellow hues of their sky.

The most important aspect of this lesson was allowing the children to experience resist, shadow, and highlights, and of course, learning more about Claude Monet.