“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
– Claude Monet
Spring has sprung and we spent a week with the Teddy Kids Leiden Kindergarten students at Runnymede Junior and Senior Public School creating gardens inspired by Claude Monet. We really enjoyed working with over 200 kindergarten students and the staff at Runnymede. The students used watercolours, oil pastels and acrylic paint to make their gardens. They also learned how make fluffy white clouds by pulling out wet paint with a paper towel. Currently their work is on display at Maison Fou in Bloor West Village
Claude Monet was born in Paris, France in 1840. When he was young he did not like being confined to a classroom and was more interested in being outside. He filled his school books with sketches of people, including caricatures of his teachers.
Monet loved to set up his easel outside and paint his pictures en plein air – a painting created outside in front of the subject. He even had a small houseboat and would paint the scenes he saw from that view.
Monet was a founder of Impressionist Painting. Monet would use strong colours and bold short brushstrokes. Turning away from the blended colours and evenness of classical art, he placed colours side by side to create a division of colours. The term Impressionism comes from the title of his painting: Impression, Sunrise.