Today we did a wonderful art project.  We used the book Nature's Paintbox, by Patricia Thomas and Illus. by Craig Orback, which I highly recommend, to begin a series of seasonal art projects.

Nature's Paintbox is a beautifully illustrated book which takes you on a journey through each of the four seasons using lovely verse.  And for each season a different art medium is featured in the artwork (winter-pen and ink; spring-oil pastels; summer-watercolors; autumn-oil paints).

So today we focused on oil pastels for spring!  At the end of the book you are given a detailed description on how each of the mediums are used to create the artwork.  For spring, Mr. Orback mainly used oil pastels, but he also used a watercolor wash just for a toning effect and pastel pencils for detail work. 

After reading the book, we set about to create our masterpieces!  We started with lightly sketching our drawings and then went over them with colored pencils (we did not have pastel pencils and regular ones worked pretty good too).

Next, we filled in with the oil pastels and did a very light watercolor wash for the blue skies.  We had not worked with oil pastels in a very long time, it was neat to get to work with them again.  And we were very happy with our final products!  And what was even more fun was that we had friends over today to do the project with us!  Here is everyone's work:

Hannah

Grace

Della

Mom

Our intention is to loosely focus on oil pastels as an art medium through the spring season, perhaps trying other projects that we find which involve using pastels.  And then move on through the seasons doing the same with the rest of the mediums.

After doing the project today, I was reminded after reading Amanda's post at Hearts and Trees about Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.  This would be a lovely complement to this project to listen to while we work.  So I plan on checking out the Mike Venezia, Igor Stravinsky book and a CD from our library before we do our next spring pastel project.  Or also, Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons would also be a wonderful complement for each season and project!