More Degas! Today we took a look at how photography influenced Edgar Degas' work. Handheld cameras were just being introduced in the late 1800's. Degas started using one as a tool to improve his art in 1895. We read about his use of cameras, specifically the use of three particular photographs of ballerinas, on this Princeton website. Degas took these three early Kodak photographs of ballerinas in three different poses. Like his sketching, these poses are all moments caught between actual dancing and are a more intimate look
behind the scenes in the dance studio.
After studying the photos, we looked at how he used these for his paintings. In each of the
two paintings below you can see how he took the ballerina photographs and placed them in the
paintings in different arrangements.
For today's project the kids were inspired by some beautiful dancing photographs done by the father of one of our homeschool friends. His name is Mark Allen Abbey and you can view his wonderful photography on his facebook page or on his website. The photographs that he let us use for our inspiration were in his "Song and Dance" facebook album. Each of the kids chose a ballet photograph to base their painting on, then they used gouache paints on watercolor paper to create their own image.
A big thank you to Mr. Abbey for letting us using his photographs!
We will finish our Degas study later in the week by sketching ballerinas at a childrens'dress rehearsal
of The Nutcracker at Harmony School of Creative Arts here in Marble Falls.
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