Van Gogh Sunflowers
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This week we have been looking at Van Gogh’s Sunflower paintings. We chose these for one simple reason: the weather has been blinking awful here and we needed a fast injection of colour and sunshine and these paintings are the best way I know to do it. Our sunflowers were pretty disappointing this year, the first lot didn’t grow at all and we had to buy some already half-grown ones to get a bit of colour in the garden. It seemed the perfect project.
We looked at the paintings and I asked:
What colours has Van Gogh used?
What colour is the background?
Why didn’t he use a different colour?
How does it make you feel?
How do you think he was feeling when he painted it?
When do you think he painted it – morning, night?
What do you think he used to make the painting?
How many sunflowers do you see?
Why do you think this painting is so famous?
If you could ask the artist a question about the painting what would it be?
We used a selection of potato prints to make the sunflower petals. Sweet potatoes are a perfect petal shape and only need to be cut in half. I made some other shapes for the twins to experiment with.
We mixed a range of sunflower colours trying to make them as close to the original as we could.
The twins liked using the colours.
We printed the potato stamp into a flower head shape. We used a cork to print the centre of the flower.
We painted the stalk with green and used a potato leaf shape to make the leaves.
The finished picture.
The best place to display the pictures while their drying.
I’ve linked to: Fun Sparks, It’s Playtime,
I love these and the potato printing to do them as well – one of my favourite activities with J is doing that
It’s such a quicks and easy thing to do.
Perfect miserable weather activity!
Their sunflowers came out so fab.
Liz Burton recently posted..What do Parents Worry about?
Yep, and we’ve had a lot of that recently!
They look fab, and very messy. Perfect!
Troubles Mum recently posted..What does an employer look for in a nanny?
The twins got pretty messy, but then they get messy sitting in an empty room!
That’s a great way to combine Van Gogh with potato prints! Love it. I found you through the Kids Get Arty linkup. Great creative site ya got here!
Artchoo! recently posted..Kids Learn Installation Art- Andy Goldsworthy
Thanks and nice and colourful for summer.
Love your method for making the sunflowers! We have yet to potato stamp though I keep meaning to do it with my girls. We worked on Van Gogh last go round and now every time we see Sunflowers the girls recall him
I hadn’t done it either – its such a simple idea I don’t know why.
Oooh how wonderful!! I love the idea of using the potato prints. They look wonderful. The sunflowers are simply gorgeous.
Thank you so much for joining us on our Kids Get Arty journey!
Maggy
maggy, red ted art recently posted..Handprint Alphabet – O for… Owl
Thanks, it is a fun idea for a link up!
Would love it if you came link up at http://www.shannonsviewfromhere.com/2013/05/artsy-play-wednesday-easy-preschool.html Love this idea~!
Thank you – I will come and visit.