Summer Pinterest Challenge 2019: Week 5

I can't believe this is our 5th week of doing art together here on the blog.  We have one more week after this, so don't worry.  I might even sneak some art projects in throughout the year, because there's some really good artists out there that I think my kids need to know more about.  Plus, I just love the conversations that come from doing art together and watching them make connections when we go visit art galleries. 

This week, we are learning all about Vincent Van Gogh and he's so much fun to study.  He is a man who loved to paint.  He tried so many jobs before settling down as a poor painter.  He loved painting so much that he often spent all his money on paint rather than buying food.  When he painted he liked to use thick brush strokes and often didn't take the time to mix the paints to create colors, he just went with them fresh out of the tube.  A lot of people thought his paintings were weird, and like most other artists, he was not famous until after he died.  He got sad a lot and one day decided to cut off part of his ear. He has a really neat, but very sad story.

We got to see this one on our vacation this summer and the one below it 2 years ago, when we were in Chicago.  As we read, Camille and the Sunflowers, Ethan and Weston were both remembering the pieces we have seen. 

 Because Van Gogh is famous for his deep brush strokes and bright colors, I really wanted to use a medium that would show the kids about lines.  We went with this tutorial using oil pastels.  We haven't used oil pastels this summer, so it was fun to pull them out and put them to use during our summer kids art challenge.

One of his famous paintings are his Sunflowers and since we read the book that talked about that particular painting, we thought it was a good idea to do our own sunflower project.  Here's a picture of one of his sunflower paintings.

I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love how these came out!  It was such a simple art project, but the way the sunflowers pop on the dark paper, makes oil pastels so much fun!  The kids often asked if we were scribbling, because at times, it really felt like it.  But in truth, sometimes scribbling can bring the best lines!  Weston figured out that he could smear the oil pastels with his fingers, so we let him do another project afterwards and it turned out beautiful!

We read Camille and the Sunflowers, which is a fun story about some of his paintings that Van Gogh painted and then we read the Van Gogh book, because those books are so much fun and they are filled with so many facts!

Here are some more info on our art project:

You can find the directions for this very easy piece here.  

Other books about Van Gogh:
Camille and the Sunflowers
Vincent Can't Sleep
Katie and the Starry Night
Vincent Van Gogh (My favorite artist books!)

Catch the rest of the Summer Kids Art Challenge here:
Week 1: Kandinsky
Week 2: Seurat
Week 3: Picasso
Week 4: Matisse

 Art Supplies:
oil pastels - I have a box of the crayola ones I picked up a few years ago someplace. . . they were probably on sale.  Here's a link to some on amazon.  

black construction paper - we used navy blue cardstock, because I had some hanging around.  

Don't forget to post a picture and use the hashtag:

#ootrbsummerkidsartchallenge 

Happy Creating!