In out art class today we studied French Post Impressionist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).
Gauguin was a self-taught French painter and sculptor. He was heavily influenced by many famous Impressionist artists, even living with Van Gogh for a period of time. Gauguin loved to travel the world and in 1883 he left his wife and five children to devote all of his time to his art- moving to the South Pacific and focusing on the influence of the native culture. His later art was full of color and "primitive" symbols. Gauguin himself inspired many young artists who later began the Modern period in art history. We based our class today on this lesson plan that focuses on two very different self portraits done by Gauguin in 1889.
Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carriere, 1889
Self-Portrait, 1889
The kids worked in teams to create venn diagrams comparing the two portraits.
Next we took a look at one of Gauguin's wood carvings and used our Artistic Pursuits lesson to create our own carvings as our project today.
Idol with Shell, 1892
tea wood and shell
The kids practiced carving today using bars of Dial soap, plastic knives and wooden skewers. They carved a simple fish shape. First they traced their bar of soap onto a piece of whiter paper.
Next they drew a basic fish shape on the paper inside the shape to create their design.
Then they used a sharpie to draw this design onto their bar of soap.
Finally they carefully carved out the larger areas and then added smaller details.
Here are their finished carvings. I have to say that this is the second time that we have tried to do soap sculptures, and they really just don't work out that great. Plus the kids find them very frustrating to make...but they smell good!
Next time in art we learn about Seurat and pointillism with a fun melted crayon project.
1 comments:
Obviously Max had a little help!
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