Preschool of the Arts was lucky to host Barbara Vater as a visiting artist! Barbara is a painter who makes abstracted macro paintings. Barbara is also a PSA grandparent. About her work, Barbara says, “Whether across an ocean or in a nearby conservancy, I look quietly in each environment, seeking images.”
In the Art Studio, we looked at her artwork and discussed how she looks closely in order to create her abstracted macro paintings.
Taking inspiration from her nature close-ups, we looked at a close-up photo of chameleon skin with vivid colors and recognizable shapes. Like Barbara’s “zoomed in” art pieces, our large-scale collaborative piece focused on just a part of a chameleon. To help the children conceptualize the connection between mixing colors and the transformations chameleons undergo, we watched a short video of this process.
Just like Barbara’s large paintings, we chose a large sheet of canvas as our painting surface. We encouraged the children to notice the texture and sensations as they painted. As the children worked on rolling out the paint, we added additional colors on top. We encouraged the children to look closely, noticing the colors blend and change.
Student: Yellow! It turns to orange!
Student: I made it pink!
Student: This is really pink! It’s turning red!
A chameleon’s highly textured and circular skin pattern also allowed us to revisit our shape-work. We examined photographs of chameleon skin and discussed what we noticed about its texture and the shapes we observed in the macro images. To recreate this interesting texture, we demonstrated how circular foam dabber brushes could be used to form the circle shapes we needed. We discussed that in order to create a circle shape with our dabbers we needed to slow down and use a “down, up” stamping motion.
As the children worked we encouraged them to slow down and look closely to find the spot with their eyes before making the mark with their dabber. This helped our marks to stay separate, resembling the bumpy texture of chameleon skin.
Student: I’m making some circles.
Student: That’s a big one!
The children worked in successful collaboration, making room for one another, trading colors, and quietly focusing on working together to cover the surface.
Student: This is going to be the best thing ever!
Student: It’s so colorful! Wow!
Lastly, we revisited the work to add a layer of drawing. The mediums chosen to create the finer details were mark-making tools. These tools enabled the children to practice making circles in a way that was different from the previous stamping and required a bit more control and focus. We practiced making circles first on the table with our fingers and again by using water on a Buddha board. We repeated the mantra we’ve been using when drawing circles all through our looking closely exploration: “around and stop!”
As the children worked, we asked them to look closely and create in response to what they had done previously adding texture to the chameleon skin.
Student: I’m trying to reach these little ones. If the circles start to disappear, we can make new ones!
We were very proud of the children’s ability to work in collaboration! The entire group felt great joy at the colorful transformation of our painting into chameleon skin!
Reflection by Emma Kane, Rasha DeIuliis and Kelly Blondin – Art Specialists
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