Second Grade Art Smart Lesson Plan Monet

Project Summary: Students will use glitter poster paint to create a waterlily painting like Monet with lily pads and flowers.

Art examples: Monet’s water lily paintings

Materials needed: glitter poster washable paint; trays; white watercolor paper, green tissue paper lily pads, pink tissue paper; paint brushes, bowls, construction paper or cardstock to mat project; glue, paper towels

Things to do before class: Cut pink and green paper

Lesson plan:

Script - Claude Monet was born in Paris, France, in 1840. He was a great artist who helped invest an important style of painting called “Impressionism”. Before he did that, Monet liked to draw. In fact, he would often draw in school instead of paying attention to his teacher! He even drew funny pictures of his teacher!

Monet drew pictures until another local artist convinced him he should try painting. This other artist, Eugene Boudin, gave Monet his first painting lessons – and he had some interesting ideas about painting.

At this time artists did all their painting indoors, in houses and studios. They often painted pictures that told stories, like about an important battle or historical event. They often used dark, moody colors and painted very clear, sharp pictures.

Boudin convinced Monet artists should paint outside. They were more interested in how beautiful things were, especially when sunlight shown upon it. They like to paint ordinary objects – like boats and rocks, even

haystacks in the field. Many people made fun of the Impressionism paintings. They were just so different from what they were used to. But Monet and his friends continued to paint.

Many of Monet’s paintings are pictures of water. He loved to paint boats, oceans, ponds and lakes. Monet loved the way colors reflect in water and the special way water makes the clouds and sky look. He also liked to paint the same object in many different light conditions. So he might paint the same haystack in the morning, at lunchtime and again in the evening when the sun was going down. Remember the dark picture with the horses and lions? Monet’s style of painting is very different and kind of tricky. If you look at his paintings up close, you see a bunch of colorful brushstrokes. (show print) It almost looks like a mistake! But if you look from a distance, your eye blends the colors into a picture that shows movement; and gives you the feeling of being right there. Claude Monet lived to be 86 years old. The last 10 years of his life he painted pictures of his water garden. These paintings are among his most beautiful and famous paintings he did. Some of them are over 40 feet wide…..that’s bigger than your classroom. Among these paintings are his paintings of water lilies. (show prints) Today you will be making a water lily painting, similar to Claude Monet’s. It would take us way too long to put tiny brushstrokes all over our papers, so we’re going to use a technique that uses glitter paint!

Lesson – 1. Give each child a piece of water color paper, recommended size 5 by 7 inches. 2. Using pink, blue and green glitter poster paint have each child squirt a very small amount of paint on the paper. (Maybe have parent volunteers do this to avoid excessive drops while kids point to location of drop) 3. With a wet paintbrush, smear the paint to cover the page. Emphasize smearing. You do not want them to over work the paint and completely mix all 3 colors into one mucky color. The whole process should take 3 seconds. (Practice this at home prior to lesson as it takes a very light touch. If kids over brush it maybe add a little pink to brighten it up again) 4. Glue on green tissue paper lily pad with a crumpled pink tissue paper flower. (Optional – have kids cut out their own lily pad while parents

are dripping paint or have the lily pads pre-cut. These lily pads do not need to be perfect circles a blob is fine to save time) 5. Mount paper for displaying on to cardstock or construction paper.

If the finished product looks too wet and squishy, place a piece of clean paper on top and press down. Remove the blotting paper from the original to reveal your finished product. Add lilies as desired.

Dear Second Grade Parent,

Today was your child’s first Art Smart lesson of the year. Art Smart is an enrichment program designed to encourage an understanding of the Arts among children. Generally, each Art Smart lesson includes a brief presentation by parent volunteers, a review of several artwork samples, and a hands- on project in which the students create their own work of art in the style of that particular artist.

Today’s lesson was about the life and works of Claude Monet. Monet was a famous French artist most well-known for being one of the “founding fathers” of Impressionism. The children viewed several of Monet’s famous works, including a few of his water lily paintings, which he created shortly before his death. There were a lot of interesting facts shared about Monet and Impressionism.

Each child then created their own Monet-like water lily painting using a special technique involving glitter paint! It was really fun and creative! Please take some time tonight to ask your child about Claude Monet and about his or her own water lily project!

Sincerely, ArtSmart Volunteers