The Starry Pumpkins?!

As an Art Ed major (with art history and Dance minors), along with my regular art and education classes, I am required to go out and actually observe real life classrooms for my degree. Right now, I am fortunate to observe at Dunmore Elementary Center, and this past weeks observation might be my favorite yet!

Currently the second grade classes are re-creating Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and as an art history enthusiastic, I was very happy and excited to hear that! The art teachers even read a children’s level book about Van Gogh himself, which I truly appreciated because once I become an art teacher I plan on educating my future students about artists and their works too! The teachers even have a poster up so the students can refer to it when they are creating their own pieces.

However, the students are going with a pumpkin theme so they will not be replicating Van Gogh’s piece exactly. The students are taught to use his free flowing moving lines and swirls using grays, blues, and purples for the spirals. The students are drawing the moon, stars, and hills on either black or gray paper using yellows, pinks, oranges, and reds. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of the students processes with the project but here is the teachers example:

As of now the students only made it this far into the project but I am super excited to see the rest of it when the time comes! Maybe there will even be a post about the finish pieces in the future!