Just now, it is hot summertime in the southern hemisphere. In Australia, South Africa and South America, the daylight lasts long, people are on holiday at the beach, farm children play outdoors until late in the balmy nights. In nature, the many, many different kinds of flowering trees are in bloom. It is the opposite season of the "cold January" of the previous post, but the analogy made there between the seasons' changes and drawing or painting still holds:
As nature's starkness in winter is to its plenitude in summer, so drawing is to painting.
And so, if you live where it is summer, now is the time to teach children to paint the flowering trees that they see. If they are all ready familiar with sketching, they may wish to do a sketch and then colour it with watercolours. If not, they may enjoy painting with watercolours on wet paper, which can give a wonderful, bright effect of the fullness of a tropical tree in bloom. Try to have the children do a painting a day of the same tree over an extended period of time, to help them observe its changes throughout its blooming.
Be sure to display the paintings!
Extend the Activity By Discussion
Try to learn as much as possible about the species of tree, what birds eat its fruit, what insect live in it, what it needs to thrive, where it originated and where it grows now. Would it grow in the northern hemisphere? Why or why not? Would it be in a greenhouse? Children in the tropics often find the idea of a greenhouse hilarious, so it is a good topic of discussion.
©2010 Anne Morddel
Seasons South and North
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