The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau

Today was Red Clover Day at Fayston School!  Each teacher team chose a different Red Clover book and led an activity about that book.  Mrs. J. and I chose the Fantasic Jungles of Henri Rousseau.

We provided students with many different choices of arts media and let the go WILD making jungle animals, plants and flowers.  Our jungle mural perfectly captures the vibrancy of Henri Rousseau's work.

Here is our mural:

Inspired by Henri Rousseau's Jungle Scenes

Henri Rousseau Jungle Pictures

Third and fourth grade artists learned about self-taught artist Henri Rousseau.  We looked at many of his famous jungle paintings, most of which were made from his observations at the Paris Botanical Garden and from library books.  

In order to help plan our original jungle compositions, we used the NGAkids Jungle Interactive online game.  

Welcome to the Jungle! Henri Rousseau Paintings

Third and fourth grade artists studied the painintngs of Henri Rousseau.  We specifically looked at his lush jungle paintings.  They used acrylic paints on canvas board to create jungle landscapes.  We learned about foreground, middle ground and background and we also focused on mixing different shades and tints of green, rather than using the green paint straight from the bottle.

A few of Henri Rousseau's jungle scenes:

Student work: