Third Grade Monet Lily Pads

In third grade, our first project of the year was discussing the artist Monet and his famous Lily Pad painting.  We talked about how Monet uses his colors to express the light that he would have seen while painting En Plein Air or Outdoors.  We drew lily pads on our paper in the foreground, middle ground and background to help us show distance and space.

We also talked about the lines that could be utilized to show movement in the water- ripples, currents... Oil pastels were used before adding paint so they would stand out, using the resist technique of painting.

The students used oil pastels to blend and color their lily pads and then used paint to add their water.  Some chose to create creatures in their water-fish, frogs, etc... They had a lot of fun creating their paintings!  So many came up with creative solutions for their artwork.