Bruegel Wedding Feast

We have started our next famous artist ~

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Because so many of his works feature peasants in everyday life, he was known as “Peasant Bruegel”.

My daughter chose this painting,The Wedding Feast, for our first art appreciation lesson.

The Peasant Wedding, a 1567 or 1568 painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, with two men playing pijpzaks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We both looked at all the details in his painting. He puts so much into his works that you can almost play “I spy” to try find the many characters!

I traced a fairly detailed outline of the painting.

Miss.L11 painted it with watercolors, carefully copying the colors. 

It took several short sessions before had she completed the entire painting, but it was a quiet and enjoyable activity.

Why don’t you give this art work a try?

1. Find the painting online  ~ 
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder
   
2. Download the outline ~ Bruegel Wedding Feast
3. Color or paint the picture if you wish.
4. Have fun!

Blessings,

Leonardo Pastel Portraits

Leonardo’s da Vinci’s portraits are beautiful.

Something about his unfinished sketches draws the viewer’s eye to the glorious shading and luminescence of these faces.

We used an extract picture from “The Virgin of the Rock” (because it was on the font cover of my Leonardo art appreciation book – just using what we have )

I made a simple outline drawing ~

Free download ~ Leonardo da Vinci portrait

We all started our own “incomplete version” of a Leonardo portrait.

1. Cover the entire page with orange, yellows and browns and ‘fist it in’ or blend it well.
2. Do all the hair with dark browns and even black areas and cover the areas around her face with dark browns and blacks.
   
3. Add shadows to the face – under the chin, the neck folds, the  lower cheek, the creases in the eyes, the bags under the eyes, the nose and lips – and blend lightly.
4. Then add skin color or light beige or cream for highlights and blend slightly.
5. Now it is time for details – dark, dark brown or black on the upper eyelid and the pupil of the eyes and the nostril.
6. Add shading to the eyelids, the nose and the lips.
7. Emphasize what is really dark and those areas that are light.
8. Add light yellow swirls to the hair.
9. Maybe add some white to her collar.
   

There were moments of frustration … add in “wanting to give up” … when fuzzy pictures were difficult to ‘pull out’.  We also all struggled  for a moment when the picture was ‘almost done’ and it became fuzzy again and we ‘lost it’.  (It is best not to “over-work” this type of   pastel art.)

But pastels are wonderfully forgiving and you can just layer on top of the colors or textures you need to change.

It is phenomenally difficult to capture the pristine beauty and luminescence of the original … but we all felt quite happy about our efforts.

A spritz of fixative and our portraits were done.

Blessings,

Famous Artists 2013 Timeline

We use both our Book of Centuries (BOC) and our Wall Timeline.

Every year I seem to change and refine our timeline work and their applications.  As the children grow up they develop a more detailed sense of where things “fit”on the timeline or in their BOC.

As the children entered middle school, they each started their own BOC.

Much to my disappointment, they didn’t really refer to it much unless I scheduled it.  Their entries were also not as detailed or as personalized as I would have liked.

But, I press on in 2013, and made this ~ all our Famous Artists we’ll study this year printed out on a simple timeline ~ (click the title below for your free download)

Famous Artist Timeline for 2013

With a quick snip-snip, my kids can cut out and paste the Famous Artist in their BOC. I’ll encourage them to write their biography notes with each artist and musician.

Which artists are we studying this year?

Rembrandt van Rijn, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Caravaggio, Joseph Farquaharson, John James Audubon, Jules Breton, Albert Bierstadt, Elizabeth Gardener Bouguereau, William Bouguereau

Here’s a sample of my year plan:

How did I plan this?

The simplest and most inspiring Charlotte Mason weekly inspiration came from All Things Bright and Beautiful. Patti creates a weekly post with a famous artist, some observations and suggestions for the art work, and she inserts a Classical Musician link and quotes a famous poet.  True to Charlotte Mason, she focuses on the same artist, musician and poet for the whole month.  If you are unsure of how to start your CM Fine Arts, just subscribe to her blog and it is all done for you!

Tip: Right-click on any famous public domain artwork and “save image as” to save the image to your computer. Use as a screen saver or wallpaper for the week you are studying the artwork.  Or print out postcard size for your “gallery” and your child’s picture study.

I also add artists or art works that I have in my art book collection.  I believe I must be faithful to use what I have at hand.  I’ll add library books to the collection as we go along. Basically I look for 3 to 4 good-sized prints for each artist. That will give us one picture each week for that artist for a month.

Typically I also look for a picture that will lead to an interesting art appreciation lesson.  We do not “do art” each time, but the picture should evoke a feeling, a thought or stimulate a story, or should be able to be narrated in detailed.

Ambleside Online have a great list of Fine Art subjects for each year.

Read how these amazing homeschool moms plan their art study:

Jimmie’s post – How to Plan Artist Study for a Semester at Jimmie’s Collage and

Barb explains how she does her Planning Art Appreciation for Homeschool or co-op at Harmony Fine Art.

Also, you can pop over to my Art Era Timeline and Famous Artists pages for more inspiration and free downloads.

So, join in.  How do you do your art study?  Feel free to share your experiences in the comments.

Blessings,

This post was submitted for the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Loretta Grayson Inspired Art

I first came across Loretta Grayson’s art via Pinterest a few weeks ago.

I spent some time browsing her blog Shoebox of Photographs I was totally mesmerized by her colors, style and themes of her art and crochet work.We spent Friday’s art session doing her free tutorial.The tutorial was very clear and laid out simply.  You will need good paper, a ruler and pencil, oil pastels, water colors and acrylic paint for this art activity.

I followed her tutorial precisely and enjoyed the process and the results.

My two daughters created their own design inside the tree circles and came up with completely different paintings.

Miss K.13′s named hers “Burnt Trees Come to Life”

Miss L10 worked her textures with toothpicks and added lots of detail, spending much more time on her art than we did!  She loved the process, but was not thrilled with her actual painting. 

I spent some more time in the afternoon working on tree inspiration for our Lucerne Tree Farm.  I managed to capture our mountains, the lucerne seeds on our trees and their long roots going deep into the soil with their nitrogen-fixing nodules.

I loved the simplicity of the Loretta’s squares, the colors and the patterns. 

I’m hooked on Loretta Grayson’s art!

It was refreshing to focus on a ‘new‘ famous contemporary artist for our Friday Fine Art theme.

What artist has inspired you lately?

Blessings,

Matisse’s Goldfish

This is our third week of looking at the famous Fauvist artist ~

Henri Matisse

We enjoyed a lovely simple art appreciation lesson ~

The Goldfish

I used Charlotte Mason’s approach and asked Miss. L10 to look closely at the picture for a few minutes.  Then she tried to describe the picture with as much detail that she could …

… the tall cylindrical shape of the gold-fish bowl

… the number and color of the fish

… the reflection of the fish in the surface of the water

… the pink round table

… the blue railings on the balcony

… the leaves and flowers of the flower pots

… the black  and grey background

She and I happily painted the outline picture that I traced.

We took our time and listened to our Famous Composer Tchaikovsky as we painted.

Miss. L10′s painting

A simple, relaxed art appreciation lesson.

My painting

Will you give it a try?  Here are Matisse’s famous quotes, some art works and the Goldfish outline ~

Henri Matisse paintings & quotes & Goldfish outline

Blessings,

Matisse’s “Red Studio” Inspiration

This week we did a lovely study of Henri Matisse‘s

Red Studio

We looked at the picture.  Of course, it was distinctly red!

Miss . L10 noticed the scratch marks for all the furniture.  Matisse did not paint anything in colour or detail except for the artworks in his studio.

I encouraged my child to “create a mental picture” and then tell me all that she remembered in the painting.  Her oral narration was wonderfully detailed and accurate.

Our A History of Western Art by Anthony Mason had lovely explanations of the visual elements of the painting.  For example, he suggests the grandfather clock has no hands because “time is meaningless in his (Matisse’s)  studio.”

This work led to a lovely art application lesson ~

Paint our school room …

or more specifically Sketch Tuesday’s theme

“School Supplies“

in Matisse-fashion!

1. Sketch your school supplies.  Put out some items on the desk to draw.
2. Color everything in red/ or any bold color.  I chose yellow. Miss.L10 did her room red.
3. Scratch the furniture  or other ‘unimportant’ details with a toothpick in the wet paint.  (Note: Wet paint makes the paper soft and my toothpick pierced a hole in my paper!  Also, it did not leave a clear white mark.  I let mine dry and used a white pen to “draw” the scratch lines!  Of course, Matisse’s method will work on canvas with acrylic or oil paints.)
4. Paint the important details in color.
5. Outline in black pen when dry.
6. Viola! A Matisse-Inspired School Room!

Visit  Khan Academy for a detailed online lesson and video on “The Red Studio” and read Paper Cut Outs with loads of examples of Matisse’s paper cut-out art as well as biographic details of his later works.

I created some Matisse paintings and quotes print outs. Here is your free download ~ Henri Matisse paintings & quotes

Enjoy more art lessons – pop over to my Art Pages!

Blessings,

Matisse Paper Cut-Outs

This month’s Famous Artist is

Henri Matisse

As a famous Fauvism artist, his modern art is full of

bright colors and dramatic art.

Fauvism was characterized by bold and often illogical colors.

Henri Matisse “Sorrow of the King”

We started our art appreciation lesson with Matisse’s

“Sorrow of the King”

1. Look carefully and describe what you see ~

My children noted :

• the background is made up of colored blocks of paper
• the “people” are not realistic
• they could identify hands, body shapes, a guitar and a ‘dancing’ person
• there were yellow leaf-shapes all over the picture
• the picture did not really look sorrowful, nor could they find a “king”

I read a few Matisse quotes ~

 “The entire arrangement of my pictures is expressive; the place occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything has its share.”

Matisse’s quote about his art inspired my youngest daughter to describe her own thoughts about Matisse’s paper cut-out picture.  She came up with a very amusing story, completely illogical, and yet symbolic, from the artwork.  She certainly “made it her own”!

2. We used Erika’s World’s Greatest Artist free download. 

• I used my Famous Artist Biography pages as our notebook page. We read a brief biography and the children noted the details on the notebook page.
  
• Erika’s puzzle was an excellent “review” of the picture we had just examined.
• We made up the minibook with the thumbnails of Matisse’s art.

3. Art fun with paper cut-outs !

1. We chose a theme for our picture – “Camping” – from this week’s Sketch Tuesday’s topic.
2. This lesson used scraps of gum paper and sugar paper, so keep a stash of scraps for specially these lessons.
3. Cover the entire page with blocks of color.  I made mine into a sort of sunset. Miss.L10 made hers land and sky with clouds.
   
4. Now cut out shapes that express the idea of a thing.  Not exact. No pre-drawing. Just freehand with your scissors!
5. Paste the shapes on the page until it is full or tells a story.  It can be illogical – like fish in the sky, shapes in the negative space the suggest an object, random colors … “Matisse it!”
6. Have fun, sign your name and hang it in the gallery!
7. Quickly “Duster-Buster”  up all the little paper pieces on the floor!

An easy, fun Matisse art lesson!

Blessings,

Zoom in Georgia O’Keeffe Flowers

What is characteristic of Georgia O’Keeffe’s flowers?

They are magnified 

huge

enlarged

seen close up

To quote Georgia,

” When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moments.  I want to give that world to someone else.  Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower”.

This week I wanted to do a painting activity based on flowers “O’Keeffe style” and ~

Zoom in on a flower

Look for a flower image on Google images:

1. Type in the type of flower you want and right-click the image to “open on a new tab“.
2. Click “View full-size“
3. Right-click on the image and select “Save image as“.
4. A pop-up menu opens.  Select your “My Pictures” folder make a new folder.  Name it “Flowers” and save the image.  Rename your image if needed.

Now use Picasa 3 to edit your flower image:

Picasa has a wonderful editing option which turns an image into a pencil sketch.  Here’s how to:

1. Open your saved image.
2. Click “File” and select “Save a Copy“.  Picasa saves your original image.
3. Crop the image – select the focused area.  Your flower should touch (and even go off) all the sides of the frame. 
4. Now select the “blue” paintbrush Picasa edit button for “even more fun and useful image processing” and click “Pencil Sketch” option.
5. Fiddle with the slide settings to create a clear, sharp outline image with some shadows.
6. “Print” and select “Full Page” and you will have a full-page pencil outline of your flower.
7. Print the original color image as a smaller size printout to use as your reference while you paint.

Have fun painting:

Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting are beautifully shaded.  Her petals range in tone from light to dark shading.  Look at the original images of the flower to see the main color with its light and dark tones and shades.

1. We used acrylic paints and a paint tray.
2. Select and pour a medium-sized blob of your main color and then a smaller blob of white and a tiny dot of black paint.
3. Create a light mix of color by adding white and a dark mix of color by touching a tiny bit of black to your color.  Now there should be white, light mix, pure color, dark mix and black paint blobs on the paint tray.
4. I prefer to start with the dark shadows and work lighter and lighter till I highlight the lightest areas with white.  It doesn’t really matter.  Just try keep the colors from all mixing together to become a greyish-medium-color on the page.  Perhaps wipe the brush off on some toilet paper as you take a new shade and work with a clean brush and clean water.
5. Add fine details with thin brush.
   
6. Add final highlights with white to make the light areas really stand out.
7. Paint the background.

 8. Finish off with a frame.  You can use this one ~ Georgia O’Keeffe Painting Frame

Hang the pictures in your gallery and enjoy!

Blessings,

Georgia O’Keeffe Quotes

Georgia O’Keeffe is famous for …

her huge paintings of flowers

skulls

and New Mexican landscapes.

At her home in New Mexico, now a museum, one can see the simplicity and stark style of her decor and furnishing.

Fashion Is My Muse  describes O’Keeffe ~

“Georgia O’Keeffe will never be considered a fashion icon, but she was a woman who knew her mind and had a distinctive sense of style.

Looking at photographs of her in her minimalist black clothing, her sense of independence and vitality is evident.

She was ahead of her time, both in her style of dress and her artwork.”

What a fascinating artist!

I like to hang other images of the artist’s work with the small gallery on our Famous Artist wall chart.

Where possible, I add famous quotes ~

And I added a biography page ~

These 6 pages of images and quotes with a biography page is available as a free download ~

Georgia O’Keeffe quotes and gallery

Enjoy your Georgia O’Keeffe art appreciation lessons.

Blessings,

Pollock Paintings

We have looked at Jackson Pollock’s art over the past few weeks and I thought we would have loads of fun with Pollock-inspired “action painting” of our own, but it did not happen.

Well, not on the floor, or on paper, or on a canvas.  Not with actual paint.

Not every art appreciation lesson ends with an art activity.

We viewed “action art” such as the dart-throwing at paint-filled balloons scene in the Princess Dairies DVD

and were stunned and amazed at Amy Shackelton’s Extraordinary Brush-less Paintings  at mymodernmet.co. Be sure to make time to view her video!

Finally, for fun, my kiddies entered jacksonpollock.org paint world and played mess-less-splashy-drippy-multi-layered digital art.

Sterile?

No!

Stunning!

Here they suddenly realized that it is not

simple or easy

to splash paint until it looks like an art work.

There are aspects like

colour,

balance,

texture,

depth,

and movement.

And they each found that their Pollock art felt “right” at a certain point.

Yes, it is deceptively simple,

but still

art.

How have you enjoyed Jackson Pollock’s art?  Please feel free to share your post links or suggestions here in the comments.

Blessings,