This past summer I was lucky enough to teach two summer camps for 4 – 5 year olds at the Carnegie Museum of Art; Mini Monets and Art Cat’s Kitchen.

In Mini Monets, students learned basic facial anatomy and created self-portraits. They were particularly interested in the deep spaces of the skull and loved to feel along their face as we discussed each feature, comparing their own face to the model skull that we had in the classroom.  After completing the underdrawing, students used mark making methods discussed in the galleries to add oil pastel color to the face. The portraits were cut out and placed on landscape paintings that each child created. The drawing for each landscape was created ‘en plein air’ (in open air) near the entrance to the library and the painting was done in the studio using tempra cakes.

I couldn’t resist using shaving cream painting with this group. The puffy paint really lended itself to the impasto surface made famous by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. The students were able to blend together the milky pastels to create beautiful abstract landscapes inspired by Monet’s Waterlilies.