We're taking our inspiration for our start of unit paintings from the book Our Family Tree, written by Lisa Westberg Peters, illustrated by Lauren Stringer. First is my painting, next is J's, and at the bottom is Zoo Boy's. Between their two paintings is a quote from the book.
When we began, we didn't look like people. We didnt' have two eyes to blink or ten toes to wiggle. We were just tiny round cels in the deep, dark sea.On the outside, we were so small, we were almost invisible. But on the inside, we had the same kind of spiraling genetic code for life we have today.
And that's the way our family stayed -- generation after generation, year after year -- for millions of years: tiny and round, floating in the sea.
To make our cell paintings, we washed the entire page in Prussian Blue, then use the brush to remove round spots for the cells. Then we painted in the spots with Cobalt blue and used gold over that to define the outline and structure of the cells by blending a bit to bring in greens and brown. We finished with higher pigmented gold spots. I love the way these came out! And I love that Zoo Boy arranged his cells in a smiley face -- it does my heart good to seem him so excited and happy about the start of our school year.
1 comment:
I have been reading your blog for years and I've never commented before. I find it interesting that the book my friend just showed me last week is the book you are working out of. :) I really like that book and want to introduce it to my children. I hadn't thought of doing art from it and it looks like a wonderful idea. Thank you.
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