We made Queen Anne's Lace pictures with chalk pastels.
First we used small rectangles of white paper. My oldest and I both chose brown for the background. Looking at a photograph of actual Queen Anne's Lace very helpful, but a vase full of them is even better.
Pair it with a nature study.
In the case of Queen Anne's lace the flower-cluster, or umbel, is made up of many smaller umbels, each a most perfect flower-cluster in itself. Each tiny white floret has five petals and should have five stamens with creamy anthers, but often has only two. However, it has always at its center two fat little pistils set snugly together, and it rests in a solid, bristly, green, cup- like calyx. Twenty or thirty of these little blossoms are set in a rosette, the stems of graded length; and where the bases of the stems meet are some long, pointed, narrow bracts, which protectingly brood the flowers in the bud and the seeds as they ripen. Each of these little flower- clusters, or umbels, has a long stem, its length being just fit to bring it to its right place in the medallion pattern of this royal lace. And these stems also have set at their bases some bracts with long, thread- like lobes, which make a deli- cate, green background for the opening blossoms; these bracts curl up protectingly about the buds and the seeds. If we look straight into the large flower-cluster, we can see that each component clus- ter, or umbelicel, seems to have its own share in making the larger pattern; the out- side blossoms of the outside clusters have the outside petals larger, thus forming a beautiful border and calling to mind the beautiful flowers of the Composites. At the very center of this flower medallion, there is often a larger floret with delicate wine- colored petals; this striking floret is not a part of a smaller flower-cluster, but stands in stately solitude upon its own isolated stem. -Handbook of Nature Study. p. 613
I gave the boys their choice of either white or black paper to work with.
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| student, age 10 |
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| student, age 7 |
