Outside the Lines Art Show 2014

We recently participated in the annual Outside the Lines Art Show at The Greene County Council of the Arts.  This is our fourth year participating in the show, and as always it is a great way to celebrate the children's art.

Our Owls Perched above the art show, looking down on all the young artists and their work

Last year we did self portraits, this year the children did animal portraits.

They studied the animal figurines we have at the school, and did observation drawings of them.

The painting in the middle was a group project that almost all the children in the school helped create.  More about that in the pictures below.

More of the children's animal drawings.

Some artists even had their artwork displayed in the window, a very proud discovery.

One of the things I love about this show, is they really honor the artists.  They treat this show like any other art opening, they advertise for it, put an article in their Art Talk Newspaper, have a write up in the local newspaper, and one of the favorite aspects for the children, put out a spread of snacks!  They were well loved as you see in the pictures above.

Some artists posing with their artwork and proud parents.

Another wonderful aspect of this show is that the artwork is hung at both the adults and children's level.

Below is the journey the children took making these works of art.

To be able to make a painting that all the children could be a part of, we first started by having the 2.5-3.5 year olds paint on the canvas with acrylic paints.

Many also took pop cycle sticks and scratched into their paintings.

On another day the older children picked parts of the painting that they loved and put a sticker label over them. They then proceeded to paint with warm colors on top of the original painting.  When the paint was dry, the children pulled off the stickers to reveal parts of the original painting.  This allowed the artwork to feature all the children's work.

The final painting was a beautiful collaborative piece of artwork.

The Art Teacher in me loves doing observation drawing with the children, especially because they are so open to it at this age.  They are also looking at themselves, other, and objects from such a unique, innocent, and playful perspective.  

The children chose the animal they wanted to draw, and we talked about the different aspects of their animals.  To get them thinking about the unique anatomy of their animals, several questions were asked for instance, which animals have long legs or short, long hair or short hair, noses or snouts, what do their ears look like, the shape of their bodies, do they have hooves or feet, where are their eyes located, ect?  From these questions, the children explored their answers in their drawings.

I love the concentration and the way they really studied what their animals look like.

Many expressed stories about their animals.  

This young artist expressed when his drawing was done,

 “It’s a Hippo with Nostrils and Spots and Wings.”

“It’s a Kitty Cat walking outside and playing in

the summertime.” 

After the drawings were done from the above artists, this is what they had to say:

"A moose with extra long antlers that go off the page"- JB

"It's a cow and he likes to say moo!"- MA

“The Crocodile eats the Turtle, and the Turtle tries to eat the Crocodile, but he is too tiny.”- MS

I think my favorite description was this one:

“It’s a piggy with a squiggly tale that’s so fat because it

eats tiny crystals.” -CJ

All these little stories made it into the art show as well, they were the titles of their drawings.

A great big thanks the GCCA for including us in this wonderful event that features the artwork from children all over the county.  We are the only Preschool that participates in it, and I love that they include us each year.  The show will continue to be up until May 3rd.