Matisse

This lovely lady is simply 'Woman with a hat' from the french painter Henri Matisse. The kids talked about why she looks like that and then created a collaged background from our recycled scraps of paper. On another sheet of paper I asked them to draw a portrait of someone facing slightly off to the side. I asked the children to use crayon to force them to work with their mistakes and trust their ability to draw overall. It worked really well after the murmurs subsided. You can see below madame a couple of the finished products. Some of them look Matisse, some Picasso, and some simply original!

Georgia On My Mind

Georgia O'Keeffe changed the world with her paintings. We studied her up close and personal flower painting style. I brought in some very real looking silk flowers (real flowers may not have made it through our course of study) and the students once again practiced drawing from life. They used chalk pastels to bring the flowers to life.

Fantastic!

The Field Museum was nice enough to renew my membership to the Harris Loan center this year for free! Some of my students were reading Fantastic Mr. Fox so I borrowed a fox for a few weeks. We simply spent some time practicing quick sketches 'from life' and then students took their favorite sketch and colored it with coloring pencils. The following are some examples of this work. I just love all of the different perspectives!

Frida and the Fifth (and Fourth)

Last winter the fourth and fifth graders studied Frida Kahlo and the reasons why she often created self-portraits. We looked at The Frame before creating our own self-portraits. More pictures to come of the artwork once the students created their frames to surround the portraits.