Friday, October 12, 2012

Paul Cezanne's Chalk Pumpkins




zanne, Paul |sāˈzän|
(1839–1906), French painter. He is closely identified with post-Impressionism, and his later work had an important influence on cubism. Notable works: Still Life with Cupid (1895) and Bathers (sequence of paintings, 1890–1905).

During Paul's life, hardly anyone noticed or cared about his paintings.  Only a few people, including 
Claude Monet, Renoir, Pissarro , Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh and Gauguin realized what an important artist Paul was.  Many of these soon-to-be-famous artists felt that Paul Cezanne may have been the greatest of them all.





Here is the link to the Paul Cezanne  slideshow.

There are so many talks you can do with Cezanne, what a great artist.  We wanted to do something for fall, and he was a natural tie- in since he did so many still life's.  

Materials:
black art paper
colored artists chalk
black oil pastel
pencils

After you give the slide talk, the kids will draw a pumpkin in sections on their paper.  You want them to do the pumpkin big enough so it will be easy to color and shade.
I bring a pumpkin in so they can see that it is not perfectly round, or perfectly shaped in any way.  Show them how to draw each segment starting with the middle segment individually.  After their pumpkin is drawn, then they will go over the lines with the black oil pastel.  This will keep the chalk from drifting.
Each segment will be colored in separately with dark orange at the bottom, medium orange, then yellow at the top.  I tell them it should look like candy corn, they will then blend it together lightly with their fingers. Add the green stem in chalk, and then draw a black line through the middle of the background.  Have them choose two bold bright colors to fill in the background.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Post your photos to Artsonia

I'm including a link to my box account.  If you take a photo of the artwork, make sure that its straight on, natural lighting is usually best.  If you are computer savvy, then you can change the file name to the first name of the kids name.  For instance,  london.matisse.2smith.jpg, also you could crop them if you wish. If you can't figure it out,  email me and I can help you.
Artsonia archives all of your children's artwork from kindergarten onward.  You can even upload your own scanned artwork.   The school makes money from anything ordered on Artsonia as well!
Here's the link to upload your photos.