Petrykivka folk art

If you did read my previous post "Decoupage - what is that?" you know about my first and I think my last one...Maybe I my napkins were no so good, maybe paintbrushes, maybe glue wasn't good enough.....Finally I decided just copy the pattern from the napkin and got that box with the blue-purple  flower.

Ok, I did it but I had in my head to introduce my children something very special not just painting flowers on the box.(Why on the box?because the little girl from my class once brought a few bracelets and  necklaces and we were talking  how she should keep them usually;.that is why we started with boxes) So I started to look for some special arts which were combine with flowers and leaves and were easy enough to make it for my grade 1 student. The first thing which came to my mind was Zhostovo painting. You can learn more about it here. It was gorgeous but I thought it will be hard for young children and I couldn't find any tutorial with print outs how to do that. Suddenly I found this blog where in humorous manner Owner is talking about her first try to do Petrykivka art.

That was insight!

"Petrykivka Style of Painting is a characteristic feature of Ukrainian decorative folk art that has been practiced for generations in the village of Petrykivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region."The art of "Petrykivka" or “Petrikovka” is an 18th century stylized form of painting floral and plant motives. “Petrykivka Style of Painting” is a remarkable artistic phenomenon of Ukrainian culture, and a characteristic feature of Ukrainian decorative folk art. 

So we started to learn how to do Petrykivka painting. For my luck I found in internet this blog and trust me I was excited in the same way as my children!
We also got great inspiration from this video

So, we started!

We started with "Pen test"))

We tied "light" touch and  "press" touch of our paint brushes. We tried to make a thin lines and thick lines. We tried to combine thin lines with thick lines and finally we started to make a petals! WOOO-HOOO!

Michelle:" My lines look like a rain drops! I am painting rain!"

That was very good observation!

While children were practising to make different lines I made my firs Petrykivka painting. In memories of Zhostov painting I didn't use white plate, I coloured a styrol foam plate in red.

We were so excited and started to prepare plates right now! while plates were drying children created own designs. 

 Finally!!! Some children felt ready to do their masterpieces!!!

Masha is painting her jewellery box. 

Shima prepares her wooden box with silver paint.

I printed a couple pictures with "Petrykivka" painting and we explored how Artist was painting those flowers and birds. We discovered every touch of Master and learn how to create flowers and ornaments.

Our first masterpieces!

This project took almost 4 weeks and we still continue to work on it. Many children who wasn't interesting in painting before join as in process and even older children such as Grade 3-4 were observing my Grades 1 and ask to join our team. Everyone is welcome! 

That how it was looking on our Art show

I badly want to share this post here