Shelli Walters inspired poppies

For the first day of the 10-12 year old group I chose to study one the single best reasons anybody should join Pinterest. Shelli Walters is a graphic designer in Oregon who happens to paint on the side and sell her masterpieces on Etsy, click Here to check out her work. Her paintings are gorgeous!

We talked about open & closed composition. 

Open composition is like a landscape painting or picture close up of a flower, where the entire object isn't on the canvas. Your mind has to visualize the rest. 

Closed composition is like painting of a vase with flowers or a picture of a bird flying. The focal point is the object and you can see all of it.

We examined Shelli's paintings and decided which were open composition and which were closed composition.

We applied open composition to the layout of our poppies & leaves we would paint. 

Painted their choice of color for their poppies, then using a variety of shades of greens for their leaves & stems. 

Next they used magazine clippings the same color as their flowers and mod podged them on as petals, much like Shelli uses in her works. 

Lastly, they painted a black circle in the flower and adding a hint of gold to make it sparkle if they liked.

Their finished products blew me away! 

This was my favorite lesson because the process in creating these is so fun and free. I loved it!