Fine Art in the Library, 3rd week

On Week Three
we discovered the work of
painter Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

First we painted our canvases blue,
and let them dry.

Then some of the kids looked at some of the reference materials to be inspired
to create their own Chagall-ish paintings.

We talked about how and why Chagall used a lot of symbolism in his work.

The Eiffel Tower showed up in many of the paintings, as did Roosters, Flying People and Violins. One of the students even did a painting of a stained glass window.

Next week is April 1st ~ come back and see who our featured artist is next time round!

Chagall study

This coming Wednesday, our class with be learning about Marc Chagall with the kids.
With that in mind, I painted this small 9.5" x 11.5" painting this afternoon, using
Chagall's Le Champ de Mars painting as inspiration.

Fine Art in the Library, 2nd week

Today we looked at some of Henri Matisse's early paintings and followed the progression of style over his art career.

Then the kids made their own cut outs.


Everyone seemed to enjoy "painting with scissors".












It was impressive how all the young artists worked with the contrasting colours as well as with positive and negative space.








Some of them even remembered to do their homework from last week by completing a self portrait, and bringing it back to share with everyone.

In our next class, we will discover the art of Marc Chagall.

I love painting over paintings!

There really must be something wrong with me, but I just love painting over old paintings. I'm not talking about an Emily Carr or any of The Group of Seven's work or anything. I'm talking about the kind of paintings that end up at the second hand store or in a garage sale; no longer loved, no longer wanted. In the past while I've found quite a few at the ReUse Centre and instead of going out and buying canvases or even hard board, I've opted to cover the old paintings with a coat of white and start all over again. The first time, I felt a little bit guilty, thinking how the artist would take the news that their painting were being destroyed just so that I could experiment a little and paint these quirky Wide-Eyed portraits.

"Day on the Farm"
18"x24"

My latest painting is a portrait of Susan, a very special friend of ours who owns a horse farm, has 5 kitties and is supposed to be retired. The canvas shown at the top was very bumpy and a challenge to paint over, but that's okay. I did my green duty ~ hehee!

I haven't given Susan her her portrait yet, so I'm counting on her computer illiteracy, and that she won't look at my blog before I get a chance to give her the painting.