I am trying to start a little bit of art appreciation with Bear. I am going to try to introduce her to a new artist each month. I don't have a set plan of which artists I'll use yet. Still working on it. Our first artist though is Wassily Kandinsky.
First I shared the following information with Bear.
Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow, then moved to Germany to study art. He studied the human form and painted realistic figures at first, but always tended to use color to show emotion and mood. Later he moved to France and adopted the impressionist style (like Monet). Eventually he just went full on abstract. He wanted to recreate in painting what we feel when we listen to music. The example given where I found my information (forgot to save the link) compared it to listening to The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. You feel the seasons without actually seeing the rain, the snow, the sun.... So that's why he stopped painting even hints of the figures.
I had Bear show me on our world shower curtain the three countries in which Kandinsky had lived. (The shower curtain is from Target - it was about the same price as some paper world maps I have been wanting, but the versatility of the shower curtain - ie. we can WALK on it - convinced me to get it.)
We looked at his well-known circle color study and Bear proceeded to paint her own, with a little help from me in placing some circles in wax crayon on the paper. Bear was having perfectionistic issues over this painting so I had to paint on her paper a bit more than I would have liked to (that middle circle furthest from Bear).
The finished art.
Now to find a frame.
(Thank you to Paint Cut Paste for the inspiration.)
Fantastic! I love the finished artwork.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful! Kandinsky is a great artist to study for kids especially because there's music involved as well. We've done some Kandinsky like work in the past but didn't get a chance to post it. We may have to try again soon.
ReplyDeletelove the shower curtain idea. definitely one of those, "why didn't I think of that?!"
ReplyDeleteHer finished work looks perfect to me! What a great idea to introduce her to an artist a month.
ReplyDeleteI think this is just brilliant. Do you mind if I copy your idea? I don't know very much about art and it would be so much fun to learn alongside Short Pants.
ReplyDelete@Nicole - of course you may copy:) I have more Kandinsky ideas coming up too. I taught art when I was a public school teacher and even taught an art camp. It was also my focus in my teacher ed courses.
ReplyDeleteLove it! She did a fabulous job!
ReplyDeleteI am going to be very eagerly awaiting your future posts in this art appreciation series. I really want to start something like this with my kids when they are a little bit older. I can't wait to see your ideas! I am so glad that you had kids and started a blog before me!
ReplyDeleteI really like the finished artwork - it looks so pretty. I tried some of art appreciation with Anna and saw total lack of enthusiasm. I think I am going to wait with it another year - she is decidedly anti-crafty at the moment and couldn't care less about famous artists.
ReplyDeleteAWESOME! The art turned out lovely! Ever since the Matisse study during OEA, I've considered studying an artist. However, it's really not my nack. I'm thrilled to see that you're planning on doing/posting about your studies. If you start a linky, we'll join in ~ otherwise, we'll follow after you each month.
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