Wooden Faces

A walk outside was all it took for us to collect wood chips fallen from a branch that was cut off a tree. We were not sure of what to do with them but who could resist such interesting shapes and texture? Now that we are doing an art unit and talking about art and art mediums all it took was for one of the students to browse our box of artwork photographs and make a connection between our wooden chips and the work of Karel Appel entitled “Questioning Children”.

This could also be an art project linked to investigations about feelings.

Appel’s artwork is an oil on wood relief with many faces painted on it in a very simple style. So we decided to paint faces in his style.

First each student chose a base color; they painted the whole piece of wood in one color. 

Today the paint was dry so the children painted details on the face. 

They are displayed in the classroom and if later the students decide to add something else I am going to say, “Why not?”

Here are our adorable wooden faces. Can you tell what they are feeling or thinking?