Laurel Burch

Laurel Burch Cat Designs

Laurel Burch was another source of inspiration. We looked at how she became a successful artist in spite of the daily struggles that she had to deal with. Her life story encouraged the students and they enjoyed listening to interviews with her that are now available on YouTube. I have pinned several of these interviews to my Pinterest account; you will find them under videos. In one of the interviews she was asked if she feels driven to sometimes paint the pain and turmoil that she is experiencing in life. She responded, “Why would I do that? I like to paint my joy not my pain.”

To make the cats we started by looking at a lot of her great feline designs. Then I gave the kids a drawing lesson on how Mrs. Burch drew most of her cats. We talked about how she took the cat drawings and turned them into designs by giving them wide eyes and multiple patterns that were filled with colors. After each kid drew a cat they were ready to turn it into their own design.

The 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders made 2D drawings and colored them with sharpies, markers, crayons, color pencils, and a few used oil pastels. I tried something a little different with the 5th and 6th graders. They were given a piece of railroad paper and they got to decide what medium they wanted to complete their project in. Some painted with watercolor and tempera, while others used sharpies and colored pencils. We cut out the cats and then attached them to another piece of paper that helped to create a finished piece. The 6th graders used roofing tar to paint on and they used acrylics to finish their cats up. The camera does not do justice to these cats. Hope you enjoy these fun cats!