Mommio: Art Class

Today in art we studied another famous Italian Renaissance painter, Raphael Santi.  We learned about his life as a child from our Artistic Pursuits curriculum.  Raphael was homeschooled by his father who was a great painter himself, and Raphael became his apprentice at a young age.  His duties as an apprentice were to grind and make all the paints, tie all the paintbrushes and keep the supplies ready and neat.  He was not allowed to begin formal painting until he was 11 when he was sent to apprentice with another artist.  We studied his 1505 painting, Woman With A Unicorn, in depth.

We did a side-by-side comparison of this painting and Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. And spent time discussing which ones the kids liked best and why.  My favorite comment was from Elder, who liked this painting better because her hair is much nicer than Mona Lisa's.  The lesson for today was centered around learning the technique that Raphael used for the background in this painting: sfumato.  Sfumato is the soft blending of colors- so that there are no visible lines between color changes, and was very popular for backgrounds during this time.  It's also a really fun word to say!

First the kids made their own muted colors by mixing solid, bright colors into white.

 Then the kids made their sfumato backgrounds by blending pink with light blue, then pale yellow with the pink.  They turned out really beautiful.

After the backgrounds were dry they used the darker paints their subject on the background.

 For homework the kids are going to make their own paints from things they find in nature and then paint with them.  They will also start decorating the shrunken apple heads...they look like this now, pretty cool!

 Next time we will learn about one of the few well known female artists of the Renaissance-
Sofonisba Anguissola.