Marc Chagall

Today we talked about Marc Chagall. Chagall was born in 1885 in Russia. He came from a poor Jewish family and he bounced around art schools until he was inspired to go to Paris by one of his teachers. There he learned about Cubism and Fauvism. From his experiences he developed a very surreal and fantastical look. The kids were encouraged to draw from their own dreams to inspire their works. We used pastels help enhance the dreamy imagery.

Whoa! Long time no see!

So, I've totally been ignoring my lesson plan this time around and I am sooo sorry. I'm normally much more of a stickler for what I've planned. My younger class doesn't really care about being taught the details of any singular artist. So, I've kind of been flying by the seat of my pants depending on how enthusiastic they are about one medium or the other. Otherwise, we might have spent the entire 10 classes sketching and drawing. I'll have to pay closer attention to the variety of mediums when I schedule my next set of classes.

For our class the week before Valentine's Day, we learned about Henri Matisse and made construction paper pieces, as well as construction paper Valentines. When we came back from break, I had just gotten back into to town and didn't have a chance to make it out to the store, so we went with a lesson on "stained glass." We used black construction paper, scissors and tissue paper for our "stained glass" pieces. Last week, we learned about the great fathers of Pop Art, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

This week, for St. Patrick's Day, we learned a little about Celtic Knots and how to make them. Then we practiced making pinch pots, slab and coil built clay pieces using modeling clay.

We only have a couple classes left. Next week, we're going focus on Marc Chagall and learning how to use pastels!

Fourth Week of Classes: Pablo Picasso

This week we discussed Pablo Picasso and Cubism. As you can imagine, younger kids have a hard time grasping the concept of Cubism. So, I breezed over the topic with my elementary class and then told them the folk tale about Tan Grams. They then made their own tan gram figures:



My middle school boys were both in different places. We talked about Cubism while one young man finished his Van Gogh piece from last week and the other began his own Picasso inspired work.

Third Week of Classes: Vincent van Gogh

Woo Hoo! Time to learn about Vincent van Gogh. I love van Gogh's work. The kids learned how van Gogh's work wasn't really discovered and/or thought of as brilliant until after his tragic death. Sure, he was a little coo coo for Cocoa Puffs. But van Gogh had a truly original style I find beautiful. His particular style was later coined as Expressionism. His short choppy strokes and dollops of color made his work completely unique to what was going on at the time.

My elementary class took inspiration from van Gogh's Sunflowers.

My middle school boys were a little less thrilled about creating art with flowers, so we googled some alternate images to inspire them.

Second Week of Classes: Egypt

This week we learned a little about Egyptian art and Hieroglyphics. Some of the characteristics of Egyptian art is that while their bodies are always depicted forward facing, their actual faces are only drawn from a profile view. This doesn't hold true to the sculptures/statues, but for their etchings/relief sculptures.

First Week of Classes: Pre-History

This week was my first week of Winter '09 classes. We learned about Pre-History. This time in the Earth's history is before there were any written forms of communication. There were no alphabets or consistent use of symbols to create a written documentation of events. All we have to go by are the drawings left behind by the people of that era. To this day, cave drawings are still being discovered and interpreted. We also learned, that the most likely purpose for these drawings were as instructions and/or warnings. This was the earth's inhabitants only form of communication.

So, for our activity, we learned how to age paper using coffee, tea bags and heat. We then practiced what we learned and tried to emulate cave drawings. We also recognized that most cave drawings are very simplistic with little to no detail. They also contain a very muted color palette.

Below is a sampling of my student's work!