Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon in the Park..."

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• We took a look at Seurat's famous park painting, then a close up of the profile of a man from another- it's easy to get lost in those dots
• Seurat spent many afternoons in the park sketching & preparing for this painting that took 2 years (and is 10 feet long!) so we marched straight out the door to sketch a huge tree in my back yard.
• The children each had their take on the scene- from the huge tree shown towering diagonally through the paper, to the straight up & down giganto tree with horizontal branches
• Back in the studio, we painted with q-tips from a palette of many many greens, a few browns, & the primary colors. 
• Some were sparse like raindrops, some had random colors throughout, some very traditional with 1 green, 1 brown, 1 light blue sky. Some looked like fireworks & finished early, and some were so closely and meticulously worked that the kids worked overtime till the end of class, no paper showing through in the end.
• I love going through, at the end of class, to get their titles for their work, to hear what they love about their work (& each other's) and to tell them what I see in their work. No matter the "skill set", there is so much to appreciate! I love seeing their vision grow.
• So a little tip for anyone else trying this with a class- let the kids know they can work the dots loosely if they don't want to be doing dots "all day long"... on the other hand, that may be just what they want....