Lesson: Kindergarten Spring Flowers

Elementary art teacher Katie Gerard shares this kindergarten lesson about spring flowers. First, the class discussed reasons why artists are influenced by nature and flowers: they are pretty, colorful, only bloom for a short while, are a sign of spring, are a part of nature, and nature is interesting. They then looked at flower artworks by Andy Warhol, Georgia O'Keefe, Monet, and Van Gogh. During that introductory lesson, the room was set up as a "garden", complete with fake flowers, and the students painted the shapes of the flowers. The second day, they traced around the flowers with black crayon and made designs in the background with white crayon (the white didn't show up at first). Next, students painted over the entire picture with watercolor. The white crayon designs showed up as wax resist.