How Art We Doing?

 

Mockingbird 8y/o Park Life painting

 

This is just a quick glimpse of 3 ways have done Art this year, so far. 

 

En plein air

 

One beautiful day we went to the park to paint landscapes. We tried to use the water from the pond to really 'capture' the environment as a one famous Japanese artist does (so famous I forgot his name), but the scum on top sent us elsewhere. In the water we saw the muskrat, goldfish, a Frisbee disc fly in with a splash, and somewhere in there Mockingbird saw lily pads....

 

I probably could have given more instruction for the landscape due to the frustration voiced, but live and learn and use up canvases collecting dust...

 

Mockingbird's Red Room about 12"





 

Artist Study

We are doing Matisse this term. After reading a few children's biographies during lunches, we painted his The Dessert; Harmony in Red (The Red Room) in acrylics and white chalk--because we were out of white paint... This is Mockingbird's picture again. Her work is pictured in this post a lot not because I favor her, but because she starts with enough enthusiasim to have time to finish it, and allows it to be photographed easily (unlike some people). But that's OK. This isn't for a grade or even the end product. It's for the experience, it's for fun--most of all it's for them (not me).

Painting is also a great chance for children to solve their own problems when they say, initially forget to draw in the chair--or paint over the fruit bowl and their mother refuses to step in and fix it (with mixed reviews). I love Harold and the Purple Crayon and once did a whole week of lessons in public school around him and his sword purple crayon, focusing on how he comes to a problem and his crayon leads him to solutions. (A child's version of the Hero's Cycle.) I do try to choose simple pictures by the artist that are big shapes, and might give some sense of success to young children in copying.

I gave them a piece of cardboard, chalk to sketch out the big rectangles we observed, and then paint to go at it. We talked about the curvey lines, the fruit repeating the yellow flowers outside, and where the center of the picture is. Kingfisher 5y/o painted his board a monster, all green, then all black. Mockingbird 8y/o cheerfully reassured him when he complained about his artistic ability only to (I'm not kidding) 2 minutes later, burst into song and dance about how she couldn't do anything right as she had painted something wrong. It was all I could do to not burst into laughter regarding the about-face...which worked itself out in 2 more minutes.

 

Art History

 

It's still early in the year for us (I keep telling myself) and so we have read only to Chapter 5 in Hillyer's A Child's History of Art. This book is a bit pricey and was admittedly a school gift to myself.  It has three sections; Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. We are going to go straight through it--maybe in 3 years, maybe less.  It's wonderful; concise, applicable to a child's world, chronological, and informative- if dated. I finally went through and penciled in on a printed copy of the contents a little related project we would do for each chapter. Ambleside Online has a chart that also references the dates for me.

 

I made a big chart that has the general artistic periods running up the middle; Ancient, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Modern, Post-Modern. I found this outline from Art for Dummies helpful. On the right there is space to note Historical Events to help us relate. I found an old Janson's History of Art at a used book sale cheap enough to warrant cutting out the pictures to add to our poster as we read about them.

 

Typically, I show them images on-line, set them up to do a related project, and read the chapter to them while they work.

We do this on Sundays because they enjoy it and on that day we have the time to really spend on it if they want to work longer.

 

Related Art Projects

 

So far we have done Cave Art, where we drew with sidewalk chalk on brown butcher paper taped to the wall animals--some riddled with primitive arrows, some not.

 

Cave Art -Bowery Bird & Canary

 

We did Egyptian art, simply copying the front-eye, side shoulders stance.

 

Egyptian -8y/o Mockingbird

 

Then we did Assyrian art, drawing in clay an animal with a repeated decorative pattern. I gave them each a slab of clay and some little tools. For Kingfisher (5y/o) I drew the outline of a bird and let him fill it in, but this is again, is Mockingbird's work (remember, Best Beloved, not because I favor her more), it's only about 3x5".

 

Assyrian; Peacock -8y/o Mockingbird

 

 My goals with art aside from learning about an artist a term are:

• Exposure to different styles and understand how they fit into history
• Experimentation with those different styles and materials
• That's it. (I have to remind us all, myself included) It's not to create a perfect copy, memorize the dates of the period, or what part they played in their larger culture--just enjoy and someday further down the road, have a place to put more detailed information as it comes.