Making Paint from Petals - A Homeschool Lesson Inspired By the Life of Helen LaFrance

Do you have paint and paper at your house so that if your students wanted to paint a picture they could just go to the cupboard, get the supplies and get started? When the folk-artist, Helen LaFrance, was a little girl she did not have this luxury available but it did not stop her from developing her gift.

Helen LaFrance is a famous Kentucky Christian who only finished the fifth grade. She grew up on her parents’ farm in Graves County and went on to become a significant folk artist whose paintings are about Kentucky farm life, African American country churches and illustrations based on biblical stories and imagery. Her paintings can be seen in museums and in private collections including Oprah Winfrey’s. Helen LaFrance lived for 101 years, 1919-2020. Helen’s mother showed her how to make paints using berries, flowers and bluing. The first picture she painted was a rabbit. For paper, she used an old piece of wallpaper.[1]

Homeschoolers can easily make their own watercolors from flowers. The project can become the inspiration for lessons in botany, chemistry and art. It provides an opportunity to introduce the scientific method to elementary and middle school students because this always begins with the formation of a hypothesis. Here is a basic lesson plan along with the time you should allot and can count for your students to complete each task.

1.    Send the students to pick some flowers. (15-60 minutes)
2.    Use botanical guides to help the students identify the flowers. Press one of each type of flower between pieces of wax paper – cover the wax paper/flower sandwich with a cotton towel and use a hot iron to press and seal the flower. Mount the flower on a poster board or in an album and label it neatly. Draw a small rectangle next to the flower to be used with paint made from its petals (60 minutes)
3.   Ask the students what color paint they think each flower will produce. This is the hypothesis, a big word for guess. Write down what they predict. (15 minutes)
4.  Test the hypothesis. Use a glass bowl for each type of flower. Put the petals in the bowl. Mash them. Boil water and cover the petals with two or three inches of boiling water. Allow the petals to steep, like tea, for an hour or even overnight. Strain the liquid and discard the petals. The liquid is the paint. (60 minutes plus time to steep)
5.  Add challenges for older students. Older students can be asked to predict what happens to the pigment when the steeping time changes. They may be asked to come up with additives like salt or vinegar or bluing liquid, for example to enhance the pigment. Older students can keep a log of their trials and results. (1 to 2 hours)
6. Paint each rectangle with the pigment that came from the flower. (30 minutes)
7. Return to the original hypotheses. Ask the students to remember their predictions and to evaluate or judge how close they came to being right. (10 minutes)
8.  Use the paints to make a picture. (30-60 minutes)
9.  Write a summary of what they did from going to pick the flowers to painting their picture- for students grades 1-4 assign them to write one sentence per grade. For 5-8^th grade students, assign a maximum of five paragraphs. Revise and edit the summary until there is a final draft that is ready to be turned in. (30-60 minutes)
10. Share the summary, the poster and the painting with another student or relative. (10 minutes)

c. 2021 by Lesley Barker

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[1] https://kchr.ky.gov/Hall-of-Fame/Pages/Helen-LaFrance.aspx 

Say His (or Her) Name

 

What would you think if no one ever called you by name? This is what happened to Peter and Dinah Durrett. They were famous Kentucky Christians who arrived in the Lexington area in 1781 with a group of nearly 500 people known as the Traveling Church. The Durretts were enslaved African Americans owned by one of the Baptist pastors, Joseph Craig. In most of the books and other documents written about the Traveling Church, the pastors are always named as are some of the other leaders. Very occasionally, Peter Durrett is named. Usually he is called “Uncle Peter” or “Old Captain”. One of the best accounts of the Traveling Church talks about Peter Durrett but it never calls him anything but “Captain”. His wife is not named at all[1]. However, had it not been for Dinah Durrett, Peter might never have moved to Kentucky. 

It was not because Peter and Dinah Durrett were unimportant that their names were not recorded. Peter Durrett was the first African American man to preach a sermon in Kentucky. He and Dinah started the first African American church in Kentucky. Peter was one of the scouts who prepared the way and led the Traveling Church over the mountains from Virginia. Do you think it could be that the fact that Peter and Dinah were enslaved that kept historians from naming them? Peter even had a white father, his former master. 

Dinah’s likelihood of being named was even less than Peter’s. She was an enslaved African American and she was a woman. Not naming people makes doing historical research very difficult. We need names to search for individuals in plantation records, municipal and county records, and census records. We need names to connect parents to their children and grandchildren and to find marriage and death certificates or records of military service. 

Naming people continues to be a way for justice to be served. Think about the contemporary cries for racial justice such as the protest call to “Say his (or her) name” after the death of George Floyd or Brianna Taylor, for example. As we at the Kentucky Faith & Public History Education Project continue to research the Christian men and women whose public affiliation as Christians made them succeed, we are committed to find and call them by name. We won’t be content to speak in generalities or to use pejorative nicknames or to call people by their roles. We will say their names and we will do our best to find verifiable information about their lives. That will bring recognition to previously lost or marginalized stories as well as honor for their memory.

©2021 By Lesley Barker PhD

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[1] George W. Ranck. The Traveling Church. Louisville, KY 1910