Jimmie's Collage » artist study

Georgia O’Keeffe Artist Study

Jimmie — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:15:39 +0000

Our artist this term has been Georgia O’Keeffe. I borrowed the book Georgia O’Keeffe (Library of American Art Series) from our library. It is an oversized volume with plenty of full color art for daily picture studies.

Our artist study methods have remained the same, year after year. Sprite studies a work of art for a minute or two and then without looking at it, narrates it verbally back. Sometimes she sketches in in broad strokes on scratch paper as she explains. Other times we discuss certain aspects in detail or delve into the background of the artist or the painting. But the norm is a quick three to five minute pause for art.

O’Keeffe Sketching

Over the years, Sprite has taken many art classes, but now at 12 her drawing abilities are blossoming rapidly. She has a wonderful art teacher and a generous grandma who has contributed some quality art pencils. (Thanks, Mom!) Because she is so motivated to sketch, our O’Keeffe study was punctuated with lots of drawing sessions.

O’Keeffe’s paintings of flowers, of course, led us to study a flower in detail. We grabbed the only thing blooming in the yard — a daffodil.

In The Annotated Mona Lisa, we read why Georgia O’Keeffe drew flowers so large. [Go over to The Notebooking Fairy to read her quote and download a free printable of it.]

She sketched apples and leaves, both in the style of O’Keeffe.

To be honest, I don’t plan out these sketching activities. They just happen. Sometimes I suggest a sketch, and others times Sprite thinks of it. (I don’t force Sprite to draw if she is not inspired. ) I have learned that artist study is something that flows nicely out of our daily picture studies without much advance preparation. And our schedule is loose enough that we can take an extra thirty minutes here and there to do some sketching. Often I read our history lessons out loud while she draws.

Although I cannot focus on words when I paint or draw, Sprite seems to have no problem with it at all. Her brain is wired very differently from mine! In fact, she seems to comprehend better when she is sculpting or drawing.

O’Keeffe Notebooking

Of course, part of our O’Keeffe study included notebooking pages about her life and style of art. Find these printables at The Notebooking Fairy:

Sprite’s narrations are based on what she observed herself, what we read in The Annotated Mona Lisa, and an excellent YouTube video.

Additional Resources for O’Keeffe

Picture Books

Activity Ideas

Paint a Close-Up with Georgia O’Keefe a magnifying glass

Practical Pages Sketches in the style of Georgia O’Keefe

Georgia O’Keeffe Watercolor I especially like how this flower extends off the page.

Abstract Flowers Simple flower drawing activity.

Using an Artist for Inspiration Art for Homeschool blog shares a great reproduction activity.

Georgia O’Keefe Notebooking Page A black and white image of the artist with lines to write on.

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Art Games Charlotte Mason Would Love: Birdcage Press

Jimmie — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:45:00 +0000

I grew up playing the traditional Authors and Composers card games. (Who else played those?) They were a great way to pass a rainy afternoon while learning the names of artistic masterpieces and the faces of their creators.

I’ve discovered a modern alternative of those games over at Birdcage Press. Look at these beautiful Renaissance and Impressionist art games! (Find Birdcage on Facebook here and at Twitter as @birdcagepress. Sign up for their free newsletter here.)

About the Art Games

They are card games (not board games) based on the classic Go Fish pattern. Play revolves around making sets of art, all by the same artist. A gorgeous full color book comes with the set of cards and serves as a reference for those questions that normally arise when you play a game.

The cards have a nice thick coating and rounded corners. For many of the cards, only a cropped selection from a work of art is shown on the card (the caption says detail). This cropping is obviously to keep the cards uniform in appearance while showing as much of the art as possible. The book, however, features the entire work of art so that you can find what else is missing from the thumbnail on the card. The artist’s name features prominently along the side of the card. At the bottom is a list of all of his art included in the card game. The piece that is on each card is first in the list and is in bold typeface.

Why would Charlotte Mason love these games?

they are full of art – full color reproductions of great masterpieces
the art is always titled and is grouped by artist
there is no silly twaddle or fluff; just art
the game includes a living book full of more art and history

In fact, since the book has four to six works of art by each artist, you could use these games as your artist study material for an entire year. For example, the Impressionists art book includes 32 works of art by 8 different artists — 4 works each. The Renaissance art book has 30 masterpieces by 5 artists — 6 works each. With constant review by way of the card game, your children would be intimately familiar with the art and artists in each set.

The book centers on the art and has some explanatory notes about each piece. Brief biographies of the artists are at the front of the book along with an overview of the time period and a timeline.

Sprite and I have played our games a few times outside of academics time at her request. I guess that is the true test of an educational game. If it is only played with during “school,” I don’t deem it as much of a success. When it passes the evenings and weekends test, it’s a quality product. These Birdcage games pass the test in our home. I admit, we are lovers of art. But games like this make it easier to create an environment that is supportive of art appreciation.

And you can certainly use the Birdcage Press Art Games for artist study in your homeschool. I can imagine using them for

review or assessment
introduction & overview
museum preparation
reference (especially the book)

But for now, they are just fun.

Discount Code

Birdcage Press has set up a promo code for free shipping just for homeschool parents! This code is IN12 and is good only through March 31, 2012.

Giveaway

Birdcage Press is also offering one of my readers her choice of art game — either Impressionist or Renaissance. To enter, leave a comment here, telling me which one you would prefer. Actually Birdcage has other topics besides art — history and science for example. So in your comment, you can mention something else, but I’ll only be giving away either Impressionist Art Game or Renaissance Art Game. I will choose the winner on Feb. 27, 2012.

For additional entries (leave a comment for each):

follow @birdcagepress at Twitter
tweet about this giveaway, including @birdcagepress in your tweet
pin a photo from this post at Pinterest
tweet your pin, including @birdcagepress in your tweet

Giveaway Fine Print: Must be 18 or older to enter. Must be an American resident to enter.

Disclaimer: Birdcage Press gave me two free games in exchange for my honest review. I was pretty excited because I had wanted these for a long time!

Other Giveaways

I’ve connected with a group of homeschooling bloggers who are also offering giveaways of Birdcage Press products. Be sure to visit them all and enter for the games you most want to have.

Spell Outloud — Choice of Egyptian Art Cards or Battle Cards-Military Jets
Finding Joy — Choice of Wild Cards – North American Birds or Art Ditto Game.
Mama’s Learning Corner — Renaissance Art Game
Handbook of Nature Study — Wild Cards-Backyard Birds
Harmony Art Mom — Choice of Go Fish for Art or Art Close-Up Cards
The Curriculum Choice — Art Ditto Memory Game
Hodgepodge — Go Fish for Wildlife – Sea Creatures
The Traveling Praters — Choice of Go Fish for Van Gogh and Friends or 52 Amazing Places-National Parks
Get Along Home — Choice of Wild Cards, Backyard Birds or Renaissance Art Game

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Artist Study This Term: Bruegel

Jimmie — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:32:16 +0000

Bruegel Books and Notebooking Page

Our artist this term has been Pieter Bruegel. With Charlotte Mason artist study, the idea is to become so familiar with the artist’s work that you can recognize other pieces by the artist which you have not studied. Bruegel’s look is so distinctive, that I feel confident both Sprite and I can recognize his work. A lot of his paintings are jam-packed with detail, almost overwhelmingly so.

Bruegel was not Sprite’s favorite artist, and certainly not one whose art we would want to hang in the living room. But I found our study quite interesting. Besides our regular picture study, we read a few books which I found at the library. Sprite did some written narrations of those books on free Bruegel notebooking ages from The Notebooking Fairy.

Books We Used

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we saw one of Bruegel’s original works (see the photo here). It was neat to see it again in books and be able to say that we had seen the real thing. Trips to art museums really bring art alive!

Although I normally have Sprite do a reproduction of some type for each artist we study, we chose to forgo that assignment with Bruegel. Sprite didn’t really connect with any of his art, and a lot of it seemed too busy for a reproduction. Originally I thought I would have her zero in on a small section of a painting, but since she wasn’t terribly excited about it, I chose to drop it altogether. The reproduction is an optional activity as far as CM artist study is concerned.

Analyzing a Bruegel with Smart Art

I did ask her to choose a painting to analyze with the Smart Art material. Based on her analysis, she wrote a brief paragraph. I think it’s important to have children write about a wide variety of subjects, including art.

Short Paragraph Analysis

Another interesting activity for Bruegel was with his painting Proverbs which depicts over 100 Flemish proverbs. Using this PDF guide, Sprite tried to identify the various proverbs shown. It was much harder than it seemed. (A warning: This guide does have profanity on #9! It is a worthy resource, but you will probably want to edit that four letter word before handing it over.)

A wrap up activity at the end of our study was using a page of Bruegel thumbnails for a sorting exercise. Sprite cut out the small images, and planned a way to organize them into groups which she labeled on a notebooking page.

Thumbnail Sorting

You can find more about Bruegel at Bruegel Artist Study.

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Thirteen Ways to Reuse a Page a Day Art Calendar

Jimmie — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:00:00 +0000

2011 Art Calendar

It’s sort of ridiculous how often I’ve mentioned the Metropolitan page a day art calendar on this blog. (Here, here, here, and here.) But I’m crazy about it. I’ve already received my 2012 edition, and it’s packed away on the shelf, awaiting the new year.

That daily dose of beauty helps us keep our momentum with artist studies. Every day brings a chance to review periods of history with the visual reminder of the calendar pages.

Right now we are in the best part of the year as far as the art calendar is concerned. Each page of the calendar holds two dates — one on the front for the first half of the year and another on the back for the second half. That means that every day from July 1 on brings another page that is finished and can be used for art projects.

The only difficult part is choosing which one of the beautiful works of art to use? Front or back?

Here is a list of all the ways you could reuse the pages from a page a day art calendar in your homeschool. They aren’t just art ideas but span language arts and history as well.

choose two pieces to compare and contrast
tell the story you see in the art
use descriptive language to describe what you see in the art
arrange (a select group of) the art in chronological order like a timeline (don’t peek at the dates)
illustrate history notebooking pages
decorate a bedroom or homeschool area
make artist study files for future use
sort (a select group of) art into artistic styles
sort (a select group of) art by artist
add the art to your art notebook
let the art inspire a haiku, limerick, acrostic, or other poem
make your own board games or flashcards
use the art for modpodge projects or for note cards

Many of these ideas will also work with wall calendars, but the page a day calendar has hundreds of pictures to choose from (versus just twelve), all in a convenient size.

If you have your own ideas for reusing an art calendar, please share them here.

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Paul Gauguin Artist Study

Jimmie — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:29:49 +0000

Our artist for the term is Paul Gauguin.

Artist Study Background

While most Charlotte Mason homeschoolers focus on one piece of art a week, we prefer to narrate a piece each day. For some reason a daily activity is easier for me to remember and implement than a weekly or monthly one. (Our poetry study is done in the same way.)

Some people use online resources for art, but I prefer a book. I rely on used book stores and thrift stores for excellently priced “coffee table” art books. (If that’s not an option, I have bought the Taschen art books.) As long as the books are full of color reproductions, they are great for artist study. We skip over ones that might make us feel icky (violent, graphic, or just sad).

How I Design Sprite’s Lessons

Art is a subject that Sprite and I both enjoy, so we use it as a springboard for many other areas such as geography, reading, and writing. This interdisciplinary learning is a foundation of a Charlotte Mason education — letting children find connections among concepts. Learning does not need to be segmented into strict categories.

Your artist study doesn’t have to be this detailed. I’m taking this almost to a unit study level. Realize that as we do art, we are also sneaking in other academic areas.

Paul Gauguin Details

Our Paul Gauguin artist study revolves around a HUGE second hand book and some additional titles I reserved from the library:

Paul Gauguin (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists) A simple overview.
The Yellow House LOVE this one since it ties Van Gogh with Gauguin in a beautiful picture book.
Paul Gauguin (Artists in Their Time) A more thorough treatment.

I created some notebooking pages which you can also download and use for your own Gauguin study.

Paul Gauguin Notebooking Pages - Four layouts in three line styles for a total of twelve printable notebooking pages featuring the artist Paul Gaugin.

I integrated geography into our artist study with the help of some printable maps from Scholastic’s Ready-to-Go Super Book of Outline Maps. (I bought that as an ebook from the Scholastic website at a discounted price. I have used it time and time again because the maps are so nicely done.) As a location was mentioned, I had Sprite locate and mark it on her map pages.

I normally have Sprite choose one work of art to “make her own” by creating a reproduction. She chose the painting Reverie.

Then I asked to to choose another piece to analyze with the material from the Smart Art book. She chose Reverie again. From her notes on the evaluation form from Smart Art, she wrote a one paragraph analysis of the color and emotion in the painting.

Remember, we don’t use a formal writing curriculum. Instead, I look for opportunities like this one to integrate writing into what we are otherwise studying. An artist study certainly doesn’t have to include a writing assignment.

I created a Squidoo lens with more details about a Gauguin Artist Study where you can read Sprite’s paragraph and find more printables to download.

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How CM Artist Study Took Us to The Met

Jimmie — Mon, 02 May 2011 23:42:15 +0000

We spent two days in New York City. (Get a rope.) Our time was limited, so we saw only two things. The most important things, in our minds:

The Statue of Liberty (only from a distance)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Because the Met was so amazing, I am totally satisfied with our short time in NYC.

Taking a trip to an art museum — any art museum– is a wonderful experience just as is watching a Shakespearean play or listening to a live symphony. So if you have a chance to attend any type of fine arts experience, I recommend you take it whether you’ve studied the topic before or not.

However, after our trip to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, I am so thankful for our years of artist study. In a Charlotte Mason style, we study one artist per term, looking at one piece of art each day. We add on some simple biographical background and do at least one reproduction of the artist’s work. It doesn’t take a lot of time each day, but consistent exposure to art adds up over the years.

At the Met, both Sprite and I were able to appreciate the pieces on a much deeper level than simply thinking, “I like that one.”

For that matter, if we hadn’t done any artist studies, I doubt we would have been as interested in visiting The Met. Maybe we would’ve spent our few hours in NYC walking in Central Park or gazing in the expensive shops. That’s why I say that CM artist study “took us to The Met.”

We saw familiar pieces that we had studied before.

Van Gogh self portrait

Degas, Monet, and Picasso

Toulouse-Lautrec & Van Gogh

Picasso & Vermeer

Vermeer & Seurat

We saw art from historical periods that we had studied.

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Greece

We guessed at painters and were thrilled to see that we were right.

Renoir & Degas

We found favorites from our art calendar.

Of course, the objective of our daily artist studies is not to improve our experience at art museums. That is only a secondary benefit. Our trip to the Met verified that Charlotte Mason artist study is providing Sprite (and me) a solid overview of art — both understanding and appreciating it. To see her recognize the works of various artists and be excited to visit The Met proves the value of a CM education.

Don’t underestimate the value of small but consistent increments of time.

[If you understand the "get a rope" line at the beginning, be sure to let me know in a comment. I couldn't resist.]

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Jacob Lawrence Artist Study

Jimmie — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 04:47:21 +0000

My first exposure to Jacob Lawrence was when I was teaching public school. Our English textbook had some art transparencies that I used each Friday as writing prompts.

Lawrence’s image of Harriet Tubman forcing fearful slaves northward made a strong impression on me. The story goes that some escaping slaves were so tired of the journey that they wanted to give themselves up. Harriet Tubman pulled out a gun and threatened to kill them if they didn’t keep moving forward. Her drastic actions were necessary to protect the entire Underground Railroad movement. It was always a favorite with the class because of the vivid story behind the art.

When Sprite and I began doing artist study, I knew that eventually Jacob Lawrence would be an artist we would include. Back in America this summer, I purchased two books we could use. And here is the bulk of our artist study this term.

websites

The Migration Series at The Phillips Collection
YouTube Video with narration by Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Lawrence Exploring Stories at the Whitney Museum of American Art

books

Story Painter: The Life of Jacob Lawrence This was our primary source for art prints. It’s a full-color book with an engaging biography of Lawrence that I felt hadjust the right level of detail for a middle schooler.
Jacob Lawrence (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists) This book has smaller images and a less in-depth biography. It would be suitable for younger elementary students.

printables and activities

Typing Instructor for Kids

notebooking pages — with full color images (see image above for thumbnails)
Colby College Museum of Art — full color image of Builders#1 plus questions for discussion.
Heckscher Museum of Art –28 page PDF with lots of full color art by Lawrence plus Lesson plans. If you wanted to study Lawrence without buying a book, this PDF could serve as your source of art prints.
New Orleans Museum of Art — In-depth biographical information as well as (B&W) artwork with analysis.

Sprite chose an image of a train moving through the night, one of the Migration series, to duplicate.

Our study of Jacob Lawrence was also a great review of some of the American history we studied for the last two years — the Underground Railroad, the Harlem Renaissance, and the American Civil Rights Movement.

This is another perk of including the arts in your curriculum. Art ties together so many disciplines that it is a wonderful complement to whatever you study.

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Requiring Art and Music Study

Jimmie — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:21:34 +0000

I received an email with this question and I thought I’d address it here in a blog post.

“You both do art and music study. I want to incorporate these because I think they are important; however, he doesn’t seem interested. Should I push this and require it or not?”

[Just so you know, this mom's child is a high school student.]

To start art and music in high school years would be hard if that interest is not there. Young ones are more malleable. That’s why laying the foundation of a love of fine arts is so important. But I don’t think it’s too late.

I’d hate to force it, but maybe some intentional exposure would pique some interest. For example, have Bach or Mozart playing each day in the background, or lay art prints around on the coffee table. Try to entice him to bite the bait. When he does, you’ll be ready with some spontaneous art or music lessons. (Here are some discussion questions for art & for music you may want to have handy.)

But then again, a narration of a painting is really quick. It takes just minutes. Capitalize on the student’s interests to draw him in. This particular child loves animals, so I suggested that the mom choose an artist who painted a lot of animals. I think that requiring two minutes of focused study on a painting and then two more minutes of verbal narration would not be torture for any child as long as the painting was interesting to him. Look at this list of subject matter, and find an area that would be engaging — animals, children, flowers, history, etc.

Other ideas

Take a field trip to a museum or go to a concert.
Use an art calendar as a way to sneak in more art.

What do YOU suggest for introducing a reluctant student to art and music?

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Matisse Artist Study

Jimmie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:50:39 +0000

We’re about halfway finished with our study of Matisse, our artist for the term. There’s no real reason why this term is Matisse except that we had an over-sized Matisse art book on hand. I just randomly choose artists for us to study. And I think that if you’re trying to begin artist study, it doesn’t really matter where you start. Just choose an artist and plunge in. The artist doesn’t have to tie into your history lessons at all.

Sprite has asked me several times why Matisse and Picasso were always painting nudes. So she noticed. Yes, well, I’m not exactly sure myself. (But I ventured a convoluted explanation anyway.) We tend to skip over the nude paintings and sculptures for our daily art narrations. I don’t go so far as to rip out the pages or black them out. We just flip over them and get to a piece that doesn’t cause so much discomfort.

Books

Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors (Smart About Art)

I love, love, love this series of books. They are so interesting and full of graphics.

Henri Matisse art spine

CM said to study one artist per term with one painting every one to two weeks. But we do a painting daily.

Notebooking

Artist biography page from History Scribe.

Activity

Since Matisse did some of his art by cutting out shapes from painted paper, we chose to do a collage style reproduction. To make it really interesting, Sprite chose one of Matisse’s paintings to reproduce from cut out paper shapes.

Sprite’s is the smaller one on the left. Mine is the larger one on the right. It was a really fun activity, and far more challenging that I imagined.

Matisse Reproductions

See how simple artist study is? Actually, you don’t even have to do the notebooking page or the reproduction at all. Just a regular exposure to the artwork of one artist each term is all you need. [By the way, this post compiles many weeks of study, so don't think that we do this kind of in-depth art study daily.]

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New Year, New Calendar, New Art

Jimmie — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 04:19:57 +0000

I’ve found another painless way to inject art into our day. This beautiful 2010 Page a Day Art Gallery Calendar has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of months, just waiting for the new year. And now we can finally use it!

I had read that these calendars sell out every year, and so I bought it plenty early to assure our own set. Sure enough, when I just checked Amazon to share the link with you, the 2010 calendar is already unavailable. (But they’re taking pre-orders for 2011! Talk about faith filled living. I can’t imagine buying next year’s calendar today.)

It’s an eclectic mix of artists — some we’ve studied:

Vermeer & Van Gogh.

And some we’ve never even heard of:

So the calendar is a great way to find new artists to learn about and review art that we should already recognize.

I look forward to recycling the calendar pages for Sprite’s art notebook once we’re past the half year mark. Each sheet is used twice in the year — first the front and then the back.

Just a reminder, this is the time of year (or soon to be) when calendars go on sale. So if you need artist study material, keep your eyes peeled for bargains. A half price wall calendar has super large prints for a fraction of what a coffee table book would cost. And you won’t feel guilty for tearing it apart for an art notebook.

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