Mini Murals are fun!

These mini murals are fun! My boys are really cranking them out. We have done three so far. We started out with Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, then we did a butterfly to accompany our current mini unit on butterflies, and today we did a Tahitian landscape as part of our artist study of Gauguin.

The makings of the butterfly mural.

We used pastels for this mural and it was a bit messy. The colors however came out great. I cut out the finished butterfly they made to get rid of the finger prints. The blue really seems to show off the colors they put on.

My two youngest have such a natural drive to finish that when I suggested that they only do one panel each out of six they both bawked. I didn't want to push them, make them tired and then hate the whole project. Secretly, I really love the idea of all three boys working together making big art projects, so I was thrilled they wanted to go for it! But to be sure, I had them do the first panel and see. After they each finished the top panel three panels, Zak was begging for more. They took a vote and they all agreed to each do three panels so they can finish the mural TODAY! I was in there with them. YIPPPPPEEE it was so much fun seeing these bright and wonderful colors all coming together with their primative strokes. Gauguin would have loved it...I think.

We used regular old poster paint I had in the cabinet. It had dried out alot, so prior to this I added water to all the jars and it was a little watery but it seemed to still have what we needed to imitate Gauguin's use of vibrant colors. We also tried something new. The instructions on the panels told us to paint one color and then use a different color over the top that to create a new color. It gave us a new look, more painterly. I think it adds alot of interest.

Here is a close up detail of the panels once put together.

"In painting as in music one should look for suggestions rather than description." Paul Gauguin