Friday Book Round Up

This week I referenced two books for my balloon painting lessons. 

I'm a very big fan of Peter H Reynolds' books for their art inspiration. His illustrations remind me strongly of Illustrator Quentin Blake of Dr Seuss Great Day for Up! fame. But it's not just nostalgia for one of my favourite books as a kid that I like. It's the stories that he tells in his books and how they promote being creative, thinking outside the box and being an artist. I have added three books from Mr Reynolds' bibliography to my own book collection. I've mentioned that I don't often buy books unless I really love them and these certainly fit that criteria. Rose's garden isn't in that bunch yet. I ran across this book while researching for this weeks lesson and as soon as I saw it was a Reynolds' put a hold on that baby. I was not disappointed. 

In addition to loving Reynolds Ehlert is another go to favourite author illustrator for both bedtime reading with my children and for art lesson inspiration. my kids often pick up a Lois Elhert (both illustrated and authored and illustrated) book from the library as one of their free choices. Her cut paper shapes and the bright colours lend themselves to preschool and toddler art lessons especially because the shapes she cuts are both engaging and simple. One of my favourite Elhert title is Hands: Growing up To Be An Artist which is an artwork in itself. 

If you're interested in either of these books click on the image of the book and find yourself at Biblio.com an independent book selling website or visit your local indie bookseller and buy your copy from a real living breathing person. Also feel free to visit Amazon.ca (or.com)to find the book you're looking for.By preference I try to buy from independent book sellers but I  also know that sometimes convenience and price are better if you have a tight budget.

More Flowers and Balloons

Just like last week I kept Monday and Tuesday lessons pretty similar. Since our Tuesday students are a little older and have a longer lesson than Monday, I added a few changes to extend the lesson. We started the lesson with a reading of the picture book Rose's Garden by Peter H Reynolds. I decided on a different book for this group because it was a little more involved than yesterdays while still keeping within the same theme.

My little artist's started their project by learning how to hold and cut with scissors; this is a skill we will revisit again and again with this age group. It's always a tricky lesson for me to teach and for the little ones to learn but it's very important for later when the same grip is used for holding a pencil. each child was given a piece of construction paper with a teapot shape pre-drawn on it. Following the instructions for holding and using their scissors each child cut out their own teapot. Every teapot is unique to the artist who cut it out. Some were given a little help by myself or my co-teacher, howeverthat number was considerably less than I anticipated. Given that the class size is quite big we did quite well with our cutting. We decorated our teapots with white glue and fine glitter and set them aside to dry.

We used balloons to create our flowers again filling our whole page with balloon impressions. Once our pages were covered in flowers we glued our teapot on top referencing the final illustration in Rose's Garden where the heroine's giant teapot sits as if floating on a sea of colourful flowers.