New Adventure in Art: Using Pastels

I remember not liking Art class when I was in elementary school. I never felt like I was very good at it. I never had ideas of what to draw or make or create. But I did like working with pastels. So I wanted my little artists to have a chance to try pastels, but I could never afford to get the supplies until now.

I derived lots of inspiration and information from the Pastel Tutorials on Hodgepodgemom’s site here and here.

We chose the Watermelon Slice project first. They wanted to do their own thing, but I asked them to follow the directions and make the picture we saw on the blog, then they could do some pictures of their own.

Fiona’s watermelon slices turned out really nice. She was very proud of her picture. Fiona is 7.

Garrett liked working with the pastels, too. Garrett is also 7.

He made two watermelon slices. He had a little crisis when he realized that he drew the black seeds on the second one too soon and was going to have black smeared all through the red. I was able to wipe off the black with a baby wipe, and he colored in the red, then put in the seeds. I didn’t know we would be able to do that until we tried it and it worked!

Kelsey (11) did a nice light piece of watermelon and then her trademark, Kirby.

Abby (2) had to have a turn with the pastels with my careful supervision. Her watermelon slices turned out nice!

And, of course, Emma (4) had to try her hand at it, too. I was surprised at how well she did!