October 2017 Continuing with color and creativity, these budding artists created their own imagined "creatures" by mixing primary colors to create new, secondary colors using tempera paint. These creatures are so imaginative and wonderful!! We followed this creativity up with "Totem Pole Faces". We talked about how crayons are made of wax and when we add watercolor paint on top of the waxiness of the crayon, the wax resists the paint and shows through. The kids made totem pole faces inspired by the samples we looked at using crayons and painted over that with watercolor paint to give our faces personality. Finally, we talked about the parts of the brush (the handle, the belly and the tip) and how each play an important role. Like how to hold the brush properly or how to "dip the tip" to get just enough paint and not too much because "if you can't see the belly, you have too much paint." From this discussion, we talked about different techniques to use the brush to create different textures of a tree. Like the "drag" for the trunk, the "belly drop" for the leaves and "flick" for the grass. It is always fun to hear "Oh, I made orange!" or "Look at the new color I made!" when these young artists paint.