Paint Like a Master: MICHELANGELO

We talked about Michelangelo in class today. It took that poor man 4 years to paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel (which I have never seen, but boy would I love to)! Scaffolding, upside down paint brushes, and painting to perspective sound awfully uncomfortable and difficult to me. But he did it. No wonder he's the most famous artist of the Renaissance.

My class got a taste of what he went through as we colored with oil pastels under our tables today! Luckily, Michelangelo was not 5 or 6 when he started his masterpiece... there was quite a bit of 'this is hard' and 'my back hurts' and 'do I have to color the whole thing?' But they were pretty good sports especially considering I didn't even give them a choice about which colors they could use. (sheepish grin - insert here)

Some of the kids did their whole piece upside down and others chose to finish sitting in their seats.

An added bonus was that each student in our whole community colored one piece of a large communion-themed mural. A friend of mine, also a tutor, got the idea at Art Projects for Kids and printed everything out for us - so all the classes did their sections and we will assemble them all to see what they accomplished as a group. I'm so glad she had the idea because I'm always too cheap to buy things I think I might be able to do myself (like make a huge mural) - but this was totally worth it. $5? Um, yah.



Next time I plan to bring more oil pastels - as I forgot mine and had to borrow. Our 30 minute time slot was a little too short. What with all the backbends and everything.

And, next time I'll have a bigger print out of what the finished piece will look like so the kids have a better idea of what they are working toward.

S., Age 2, lipstick, ice cream, and mascara on face

This last picture is sort of related. It's a 'masterpiece' that my littlest little created on the way home from class. I look back to hand her a little baby ice cream cone only to find she's been in my purse. (I forgot to wonder why she wanted to hold it.) So I figured, "What the heck, have at it, kid!"