Art Masterpiece program information

SCA Art Masterpiece Program

The Art Masterpiece program is designed to introduce significant works of art and artists to children and build an appreciation for fine art while enhancing their lessons in Social Studies, Science, Geography and other subjects.

This program is administered and presented by parent volunteers, in cooperation with teachers.

In a nutshell, a parent presents a 5-15 minute discussion about a masterpiece, including the artist, the medium and/or technique used as well as the piece itself. The discussion can be based on a lesson plan available or developed by the parent. The parent will have a print of the art masterpiece available to show the class. These prints are stored in our art closet in the cafeteria. The lesson includes a project for the children to complete. The project is based on the technique or inspiration of the masterpiece. Basic supplies are provided in the art room.

Please email Crystal Cruse, Deb Wead or Sharon Roe for any questions.

Van Gogh Starry Nights in Arizona

Vincent Van Gogh 1853-1890 Dutch painter. He is best known for his post-Impressionist work. His most famous works include several studies of sunflowers and A Starry Night (1889)

In first grade they study the planets and solar system in January, so this is a great project to do for it. I changed it a bit to make the foreground silhouette an arizona one.

They will be doing a wax resist, the oil pastels repel the watercolor when you paint over them.

Give the PDF on Van Gogh. Van Gogh Starry Night

Materials needed:

12x18 white watercolor paper

Oil pastels- lightest colors show up best

Paintbrushes-maybe 3/4-1" wide.

Watercolors. Dark blue, --Hobby Lobby sells magic liquid water color,One or two bottles are good for a whole classroom (@3$ each)

12x18 black construction paper-precut the black paper on a long diagonal so that each child will have half a black sheet of paper for their silhouette.



Talk about what they would see in the Arizona skies. The moon, stars and planets.
Have them Start by taking white or yellow pastels and drawing the moon and stars. Have them press hard and color the dots/circles/crescent completely in. Then they take the pastels and draw the radiant lines around the stars, moon and planets ( if they drew them) they continue this process until the page is filled with the lines and swirls. Referencing van goghs starry night. At this age, it is important to demonstrate , perhaps on the board. Some of the kids will try to color in or scribble or color the background, impress upon them that it will look the best by pressing hard and drawing slowly. The white shows up later when the watercolor is applied.

The next step is to brush the dark blue watercolor thinly all over the paper. The pastels will resist the watercolor. If someone puts too much watercolor on and it is pooling, don't blot with paper towels, the pattern will show up on it. Just let it drip onto a paper towel if it's too much, generally the excess just dries fine.
As the painting is drying, the kids will take their half black paper and free cut the top edge into a Arizona landscape. Make sure they only cut the curved edge, not the bottom edge. When they are done, glue-stick the silhouette to the background for them, and make sure their names are on the back.

Don't forget to take photos for artsonia!,

Hudson River School landscapes

Thomas Cole was the founder of the Hudson River School of artists. they were a group of landscape painters that painted with romanticism and focused on a certain area of the United States.

I remember going monthly to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and in my early years of discovering art was fascinated by four paintings in a small gallery, I could study them for hours. They were allegorical paintings by Thomas Cole from 1840, each painting showed a different stage of a man's life, childhood, youth, manhood and old age.
They were so interesting, and so well done, there an amazing amount of details that translated and changed from each painting to the final painting. There was a linked story to each painting, that in the final painting, like any good movie, the main character learns the true meaning of his life.





"The paintings follow a voyager who travels in a boat on a river through the mid-19th century American wilderness. In each painting, accompanied by a guardian angel, the voyager rides the boat on the River of Life. The landscape, corresponding to the seasons of the year, plays a major role in telling the story. In each picture, the boat's direction of travel is reversed from the previous picture. In childhood, the infant glides from a dark cave into a rich, green landscape. As a youth, the boy takes control of the boat and aims for a shining castle in the sky. In manhood, the adult relies on prayer and religious faith to sustain him through rough waters and a threatening landscape. Finally, the man becomes old and the angel guides him to heaven across the waters of eternity." from Wikipedia.





I didn't know who Thomas Cole was at the time, but these paintings and every amazing art museum in DC changed my life as far as art goes.






Now I know that Thomas Cole was a landscape painter with an amazing attention for detail.

I wrote the slideshow to show different aspects of landscape paintings in general using the Hudson River School artists as examples.

We learn about a horizon line, where the land or sea meets the sky.
Also, aerial perspective, foreground, middle ground and background. For example, the background is paler and sometimes fuzzier to show that it is the distance.
And then we have linear perspective , when artists give a feeling of distance by making lines meet at a "vanishing point".

Link to the slideshow: Hudson River School

Materials for project:
White background water color paper, heavier stock.
Blue painters tape
Water colors in spray bottles. ( hobby lobby carries magic liquid watercolor, the only store that I know that carries it, highly pigmented, it can be watered down and put in spray bottles.)
Sharpies
Salt





For the project, pass out the paper, and have the kids write their name on the back.
Then, give them stripes of the painters tape with instructions on how to make their trees and ground. The ground is one solid piece of tape and a ripped piece on top. Have them place their tree trunks where they want. 2 or 3. Then, they rip off little strips of tape to place down for the branches.






Next step is they spray 2 or 3 colors of the spray bottled watercolors onto the paper. Wile it is still wet, they sprinkle some salt on top.











When the paper dries, (you may need some blow dryer help if some of them are too wet) help them remove the tape. The final step is taking a sharpie and drawing the lines on the trees.












Links:
Voyage of life by Thomas Cole

Hudson River School

Giuseppe Arcimboldo Fruit Faces

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (also spelled Arcimboldi) (1527 – July 11, 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books — that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of objects formed a recognizable likeness of the portrait subject.





This project is a creative one that I planned for stone soup day. The teacher wanted something to go along with food, or nutrition. This is what I came up with. Arcimboldo is a fascinating artist, especially for his time period! He was about the same time period as Michelangelo. Leonardo di Vinci and Bruegel.

What a creative out of the box, going against what everyone else was doing artist! I LOVE that! He seems like a fun guy. He was so influential, a term " Arcimboldo effect" is used when an artist is influenced by him and uses the same fantastical artistic effects.






When I showed the kids the powerpoint, I made sure to show them his portrait on the first slide to talk about how serious he looks and what type of art do you think he paints? On each painting, I ask them to point out objects, fruit, vegetables etc in each portrait, and ask them why do you think he named the painting this?

For their project they will do a self-portrait using fruits and vegetables. You can tell them they must use the daily allowance of different veggies and fruit. I've included a list of suggestions on the last slide for reference.

Ask them, what kind of head do you think you are, a potato head, a pineapple head, a watermelon head, a pear head etc.  have fun!

Materials: a wide assortment of oil pastels, orange and black
12x18 paper, embellishments

Here is the link to the slideshow in PDF form...

Arcimboldo PDF

Photos of fruits and vegetables to print out for examples for the class




More links....
http://www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Arcimboldo