For the Love of Eric Carle
My heart broke the day I heard that our beloved Eric Carle had passed away. For 91 years he filled the hearts of children, and the young at heart, with joy with his whimsical and colorful art made especially for kids.
“In the light of the moon, holding on to a good star, a painter of rainbows is now traveling across the night sky”
In case it is your first day on this planet and you have never heard of Eric Carle, he is the author and illustrator of wonderful children’s books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Busy Spider, The Grouchy Ladybug and so many more. I have read them hundreds of times to my children and students alike. So many of my art lessons are inspired by his colorful and whimsical illustrations. Every one of my students know how to create beautiful painted papers and use them for their collage art in the fabulous Carle style.
One of my bucket list items was to visit the Eric Carle picture book museum in Amherst, Massachusetts.
If you haven’t had a chance to visit, for Carle lovers, it is a dream to see his original artwork and story boards for his books. Housed in a museum filled with his enormous playful paintings, walking into this museum is like walking into one of his books! For a quick glimpse inside click HERE.
This week my kindergarten classes have been learning about Eric Carle’s collage art style. We have been reading his books and having lengthy discussions about how he created his beautiful painted papers. We painted papers to create these adorable painted paper texture turkeys.
Aren’t these little texture turkeys fabulous?
The process is easy:
We used very well used messy mats (12×18 construction paper) that were pretty much covered with all colors of paint anyway.
- Paint the entire paper with one color tempera paint
- Add dots or stripes in a second color
- Use texture tools, rollers or scrapers to add texture
- Repeat as long as time allows
I love this process for children of all ages. It is such a wonderful process in creating beautiful papers for very rich looking artworks.
Students had fun painting their papers and using the various tools to create interesting and varied designs and textures on their papers.
What Eric Carle inspired projects do your classes create? Let me know in the comments below.
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