Posted by Cindy on September 26, 2009
I am loving Henri Rousseau’s style. It’s somewhat of a folk style with lots of bright colors. Combine that with whimsical scenes and it makes me smile. So many of the artists we’ve studied have been too serious for me, but the lighter side of Rousseau has revived my artist’s eye!
Rousseau spent many days studying, sketching and painting exotic plants while visiting huge greenhouses that housed plants and trees from all over the world. These plants inspired him to paint jungle scenes. In most of his jungle scenes, you’ll find animals or people hiding in the midst of the plants. Rousseau would get his inspiration and models for many of those additions as he looked at photographs from magazines. To look at his paintings, you’d think he spent a lot of time in jungles, but not so!
Surprise
Fight Between a Tiger and a Lion
Two Monkeys in a Jungle
The Waterfall
Here are Mahayla and Caleb’s attempts at a Rousseau jungle painting…
We actually tried to pick leaves that looked jungle-like and roll over them with painted brayers to make prints, but it didn’t work very well. Instead, the kiddos just decided to paint with brushes.
Posted by Cindy on August 31, 2009
Paul Cezanne Artist Study Resources
Olga’s Gallery
The Mount Sainte-Victoire
Still-life with Apples
House and Trees
Boy in a Red Waistcoat
Lesson Ideas
Cezanne Still-life
Another Still-life Idea
Math Lesson for Older Students
Cubism Lesson
Books We’ll Read
Posted by Cindy on August 28, 2009
I admit that wildflowers are quite possibly my favorite of all nature studies. I’m always in awe of God’s creativeness, beauty and majesty through such delicate little things like wildflowers. I’m also amazed at how each season presents me with new flowers that I’ve never noticed before – each with awesome characteristics that are different from any other flower.
A field of wildflowers can move me, while a single wildflower observed closely makes me marvel at the constant, yet diverse design that makes a flower a flower. And to think that wildflowers are “planted by God” reminds me that He cares about me enough to bring me flowers!
Last week, we took a very up-close and personal look at wildflowers through comparisons and dissection. There was no long nature walk involved – only long enough to collect several flower samples to bring back inside. Since the yard wasn’t off limits for picking, the kiddos brought in a couple of flowers that aren’t considered wild. No matter, it made for a great opportunity to discuss the difference between the two!
The first activity was to compare two completely different flowers for similarities and differences. This is another of the notebooking pages that comes with the Wonderful Wildflowers NaturExplorers unit.
The second activity was flower dissection to identify all the parts of a flower.
We own a very old dissection kit that made the dissection not only easy, but exciting for the kids.
We were able to see the ovules (eggs) in the ovary on this hollyhock (not a wildflower).
Eli always gets in on the action!
The third activity was drawing the cross-section of a flower and labeling all the parts.
And the final activity was to complete a watercolor still-life of wildflowers. We have been studying Cezanne, who painted several still-life works, so this tied art and nature study together quite well. And to get composer study in the mix, we listened to a CD of Chopin (our composer of the month.)
“Wildflowers in the Rain”
Posted by Cindy on May 11, 2009
Our Cezanne study…
Paul Cezanne
Olga’s Gallery
The Mount Sainte-Victoire
Still-life with Apples
House and Trees
Boy in a Red Waistcoat
Lesson Ideas
Cezanne Still-life
Another Still-life Idea
Math Lesson for Older Students
Cubism Lesson
Books We’ll Read
Posted by Cindy on May 4, 2009
Our homeschool group visited the Cincinnati Art Museum last week. What a wonderful trip!! We knew we’d see art and hoped we find art by a famous artist or two, but had no idea how many famous artist’s works they have. I’ve included a BUNCH of pictures, but this only scratches the surface of treasures we found! And even better – the trip was FREE!
(Sorry for the slant to the pictures. The only way to take a decent picture without an awful glare was to take it from the side. And these pictures don’t do the artwork one bit of justice!)
Really from Egypt!
Matteo di Giovanni
Grant Wood
Charles Russell
Theodore Rousseau
Van Gogh – My Favorite!!
Claude Monet
Mary Cassatt – My Second Favorite!
Pierre Auguste Renior
Paul Cezanne
Pablo Picasso
Marc Chagall
Andy Warhol
Joan Miro
I’m ready to go back and take more time to really observe the art – without a two year old would help! Fair warning – if you decide to go, realize there are nudes and it’s hard to avoid them.
