The Very Busy Art Room

For the very first art project of the year, we learned about beloved illustrator, Eric Carle! Eric has written and illustrated over 70 children’s books, such as The Very Busy Spider and the all time classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. He is most well known for his collage work- he would add layers of paint on paper to create all different colors and texture, and then would cut them into pieces to create the characters we know and love. In addition to learning about Eric Carle, we began our color theory journey! All of the classes made their own color wheels- the kindergartners focused on how all the colors are related to each other, while the Elm Tree class took it a step further by learning how to group the colors together. 

The kindergarteners made collaged flowers based on Eric’s book The Tiny Seed. We talked about the primary and secondary colors, and learned how to use their newly made color wheels to pick out the complementary colors that they wanted to use in their project. The first step was to paint many papers in all different colors, just like Eric would for his illustrations. Then, they added another layer of texture and color. Once the papers were dry, they cut out shapes for the petals, stems and leaves. We also learned about complementary colors, which are pairs of colors that are across from each other on the color wheel. They used oil pastels in the complementary color of their flowers to add even more detail. After their flowers were all glued together, we hung them in the hallway to start a beautiful Eric Carle inspired flower garden!

The Elm class started out by reviewing how to group analogous colors- these are colors that are next to each other on the color wheel that share similar undertones. They picked two groups of analogous colors to work with, and started painting their papers. Their project is based on all the different illustrations of insects that Eric made, so they designed their own bugs! They used stencils to trace antennae, legs, wings, etc. on their papers and collaged their bugs together. All of their insects were added to the kindergarteners flowers to complete our lively and colorful garden!