It’s been awhile since I’ve pulled out our art study. I have Renoir art flashing on my laptop all the time as a screensaver, so it’s a constant reminder to the kids of what we haven’t been doing.
My son, who absolutely loves when we color these masterpieces, has been bringing up Renoir’s absence rather frequently; and it finally occurred to me that it would be the perfect “quiet time” activity for him. I pulled out the coloring page and colored pencils for him, printed off a copy of the art original, and walked off.
Folks, he blissfully colored on this page for two whole hours! And the results of his labor blew me away. He mixed his colors meticulously to match as closely as he could to the original, and even when it wasn’t the perfect match, it was an outstanding job identifying the different shades of color.
Though it took us forever to get to it, this was the last Renoir piece I had scheduled for us to color. And as for biography information, I found the best book at the library. (We read it late in February, but with the arrival of the baby I hadn’t posted about it yet.) Not only did it have great kid-friendly information about the artist, but it also explained Impressionism very well and had fun pointers about what aspects characterized an artist’s work. For instance, Renoir loved to paint people having a good time and his people were typically painted with very fair, cream-colored skin and rosy cheeks.
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