Eric Carle Art

Ever since we went to the High Museum of Art, the girls constantly ask me if they can paint.  Well, today I finally caved.  We read the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, illustrated by Eric Carle.  I pencilled diagrams of the animals onto paper and the girls painted them. 

I told them that this is not "free painting;" it is "copy painting."  They had to try to paint the picture just like the artist did.  Both of them really paid attention to the pages of the book and copied them.

I was so impressed with Sabrina's attention to detail.  Today Catherine had to write an essay for her online school, which took her two hours.  During that entire time, Sabrina painted nine animals from this book.  She really studied the original art work and copied the colors and shapes. She even made different shades of the paint, such as light purple and dark purple.

 Here are some of Sabrina's paintings:

Catherine wanted to paint after she finished her essay.  She only painted for about 30 minutes before she wanted to go outside and play (of course she was tired from having written her essay). 

This was such an awesome activity.  I have never seen the girls just a book so thoroughly.  They kept reading the pages to each other and laughed about the silly animals, such as the blue horse or the purple cat.  They talked about the black pointy claws on the bear, the big pink tongue on the frog, the webbed feet of the duck.

As the activity progressed, they got better at looking at the pictures and telling me what colors they needed to paint it, noting the colors of the small details.  I can't wait to do this activity with some other picture books!