Kindergarten Water Lilies

Claude Monet was the primary pioneer of Impressionism and the French painter is known for his distinctive style that captures the fleeting effects of light in his paintings. He preferred to to paint en plein air—or “outside”—in his beautiful garden full of Japanese influences that included a green bridge, weeping willow trees, seasonal flowers and most of all his pond with water lilies.

We started our art lesson by reading The Magical Garden of Claude Monet (Anholt’s Artist Books for Children Series) by Laurence Anholt. We then created ripples for our water by using a white crayon on our white paper. Like magic those lines appeared when we added our watercolor over top. In our next art class, after our paintings had dried the students created lily pads with green cupcake liners and lilies from tissue paper.

Water Lilies, oil on canvas, 1916 by Claude Monet

 

“The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.” —Claude Monet