Playing in the Sprinklers!

It's finally March, and the sun has just started to come out occasionally and warm us all up. What does that mean?  It means every kid I know, including my own, have started wearing shorts to school, art class, everywhere!  They shiver the whole time but they won't admit it.  They won't stop because it's in some way a hopeful kind of magic.  If we wear them, the sun will come.  So along those lines, I thought I would post this great art project that makes me feel like SUMMER is really on its way.

I told the kids to think of drawing themselves and their friends playing in the sprinklers. Include the hose or the sprinkler!  I keep a file on hand entitled "Body In Motion" with photos cut from magazines, books of athletes, and anywhere I can find them.  These photos show bodies jumping, leaping, running, squatting, etc.  Because drawing bodies is HARD!  Sometimes in class when someone is really struggling we convince someone to "strike a pose" and model for us so we can see what it really looks like.  But the file helps a lot!  Anyway, the object is to show bodies in motion while playing in the sprinkler or the hose.  THEN when the pictures are done and colored with colored pencils you get to add the sprinkler water!  

Get out your watercolors or watered down tempera paint and splatter, flick, whatever works and make that water get everyone wet! On some of the paintings you can see the artist tried to work with the hose or sprinkler head and define the water's point of origin. This project was so much fun.  I took these photos of  the finished artwork at the Flowerstone Art Show, so you can see some of the kids won awards for theirs!