Tints and Shades

Fluffy the Paintbrush is dancing again this week in very springy colors. My little students are drawing ballet bunnies, and trying to grasp that the eyes go on the head, not on the tummy, and the arms are shapes, not lines. It is hard work, and sometimes Fluffy, the bunnies, the preschool students, and the teacher all wish they could have a nap in the rabbit family's burrow.

We are inspired by a cute book called Lettice, the Dancing Rabbit.
My kindergarten-second grade kids are also learning about light and dark, and the difference between watercolor and tempera paints. When using watercolors, you add more water to red to get pinks. With temperas, you add white. It is all splendid for painting dancing rabbits. I get to tell the boys it takes a really strong guy to be a dancer and lift the ballerina bunnies in the air.

Our colors remind me of the Bruce Wood choreographed dance, Rheology, performed by the Texas Ballet Theater. The students' art took me back to the beauty of monochromatic color schemes. We resist monochromatic thinking it is dull, and then it shoots us a Rose Bowl Parade moment. Ooooh. Aaahhh. Can you smell the rose petals?