Representing Place: Rainbow Room

The Rainbow Room children (4's turning 5), have done a lot of investigation of the Forest Space at our School (see bit.ly/Voicesarticle for more on the history of that). The class goes outside most every day, and really knows it well. The children have each chosen a favorite place in the Forest and has photographed and drawn that place. Today Page brought in a group to continue working on making paintings of their favorite place in the Forest.
Some of these photos are not easy to paint. They don't have a clear focal point and contain elements like fallen leaves and running water (sorry about the flash reflection on the photo below). Still, the paintings are really beautiful, made over several sessions with much attention to detail. Besides practicing close observation and painting technique, Page has the children mixing paint colors to match the colors in their place.

Reese was just starting to paint in his drawing. I noticed that while mixing, he described the colors in the photo poetically, showing that he had really thought about the colors in this place... 
I asked "What color do you need for the stream, Reese? He said "Wet color."
"Hmmm, so what is wet color?"
Reese "Well, wet color. The creek is wet color. It's greenish-brown.
The cave (the two holes in the creek bank) is pitch black. It has to be pitch-black, very dark. When it's pitch black, you can't see a thing."