crystal

We're taking a week to do some 'lite' science work, in this case revolving around snow and the water cycle. We read "Crystal," a story from the Enki Education Grade 1 Nature Stories collection. After recalling the story today, we painted while being inspired by the poem that is included with the story. Above is J's painting, below Zoo Boy's.

These paintings were all done with a single color. We started by covering the entire paper in blue using four kinds of brush strokes to match the movements described in each verse of the poem (sweeping back and forth, twirling around in a spiral, repeated downward movements, and a wide circular stroke). Then we used cotton swabs to dab small points of paint off the paper. (Since this was wet-on-wet painting, the paint feathered back in and it made for some pretty convincing looking snowflakes.) Then we used cotton balls to dab off paint for our "snowbanks" in the bottom half of the painting. Below is my painting.

If I were to do it again, I would have left out the large circular brush strokes, as I think we would have wound up with a pretty cool snowy landscape without that odd arcing structure in the middle of it all. But they still made interesting paintings regardless, and I really wasn't intending on creating a scene, I was just showing the effects of the various brushing methods.