Huh?

Art that makes you say, "huh?"
That's what Wassily Kandinsky was all about.

I mean, what do you think of when you look at this?
I see a dangling, dancing spider; a badger with a kite tail and a little yellow beetle with a paint palette--I've had to personify everything in order to make sense of it.

One of my students likes to say that everything looks like cheese.
In this one, he's probably correct.

Wassily Kandinsky's art may raise eyebrows, but he had an excellent understanding of form.
They even made him a professor. He wrote books and gave hundreds of lectures on the elements of design, the stuff we've been studying for the last few months.
So really, what can we dare to say?

The forms we created today were a little more recognizable.
Lizards,
Snakes
and Turtles.

And a nice wild--excuse me--abstract background of shape, line and color for them to live in.

A pail of purple paint

A pail of purple paint.

Some wadded up butcher paper.

A shiny, metallic marker.

Some inspiration

from Paul Klee.

And behold: we have art.

(Hint on watching the video: Choose "autoplay" after it's fully loaded, under "More" on the far right.)

Thoughtful patterns

Maurits Cornelis Escher was a pretty smart guy, mathematically speaking. He didn't do so well in school as a youngster, but he turned out alright anyway.

He was fascinated with the the idea of infinity, the infinite-ness of pattern and repetition, the impossibility of the human mind to grasp the idea of the infinite.

My favorite of his works is this one: three worlds. I like the reflection, depth and the subtle repetition of shape.

Escher's tessellation patterns were some of his most ingenious works.
They are thoughtful and well planned. He spent hours perfecting his designs and the pieces all fit together just as they should.

Pattern.
Repetition.
Thoughtful design.
Those ideas apply to more than just tessellations.

How about the way we develop patterns of repeating mistakes in our lives.
Or how those who love us continue to forgive us for these mistakes.
Or maybe how with some intentional thoughtfulness--and with the Hand of the Infinite, we can be renewed to create different and better patterns within our lives and relationships. Patterns that will echo eternal beauty.

Again, art imitates life.

Color and madness turned happy

Did you know the color brown is associated with humility?

Did you know VanGogh drank himself to death?
Actually, there are a number of theories on what drove him over the edge. And by "edge", I'm talking about a serious drop-off into the deep end--I mean, who cuts off his own ear and then paints a picture of himself all bandaged up?
But did you know he was also a preacher for a time? And maybe the lack of care for the poor around him, for whom he was so compassionate, is what drove him mad.
Or maybe it was the paint he wouldn't stop eating.

Theories, all of them.

And color theory is what we talked about today. VanGogh was a color genius.

Today I avoided telling children that VanGogh was a drunken kook, and we focused on the product of his pain--beautiful paintings.

Pain inspires art.
Beauty inspires art.
And for us today: art inspires art.

This is some of what VanGogh's still life paintings of flowers in vases inspired in my students...

...flowers with smiles...
...vases with faces...
...analogous color schemes...
...and even a triadic harmony.

I may have gone a little deeper into the fascinating topic of color theory than I intended for my young audience--but, hey, it's really interesting stuff!
And I think they got it. It showed up in their work, anyway.

I love it when they leave saying to each other, "That was fun."

And to me: "Thanks! Thanks for teaching us, it was fun."
Thing is, they really mean it.

Art inspires happiness, too.

Inspired by Matisse

I was studying up on the artist Matisse this week.
Lying in bed for long stretches of time changed his life.
Twice.

The first time was when as a lawyer he had appendicitis. Stuck in bed for a year (sheesh! what a recovery period) his mother gave him some paints to help pass the time.
Lo and behold, turns out he was pretty good at it.
So he left the law profession behind and took up art.

Then again, after surgery later in life, he could no longer stand at an easel. Instead he developed a technique he called "painting with scissors". He cut out shapes and was a master at putting them together to achieve balance, contrast and movement on a two dimensional surface.
He was pretty good with a scissors, too.

Matisse has inspired me to get back to painting that wall in the guest room I never finished.
Maybe.
:)

The discipline of art

It takes discipline to make anything beautiful.
Whether it's a sculpture or a painting, toenails (ha ha) or an apartment.
Even our relationships take discipline and practice to become beautiful.
Welcome to today's art lesson.
Life lesson.

We talked about Michelangelo this time. And the amount of discipline and focus he had to have in order to become the famous household name he is today.
If he hadn't drawn hundreds of practice drawing before painting his famous Cistine chapel ceiling, or sculpting the Pieta, we probably wouldn't know who he is.

So we practiced our drawing today.

And drawing, I must say, is way less messy than painting. :)
Actually, though, Michelangelo was probably really messy.

Anyhow, these days none of that mess remains. Only the final outcome of the mess and the discipline.

Such as the Pieta.
Ah the Pieta--to make something that beautiful, you've got to be disciplined.

Art is happening

There is art happening in my house.
How cool is that?

Eight young friends came over today, we chatted about Mondrian (famous for his reductionist works) and the elements of design--namely line. And then everyone created their own masterpiece.
All very unique.

I must say, though, the lesson seemed a lot like "how to make a mess".
:)
But that just means creativeness is happening, right?

Chinese jumprope

We studied about China this week.

So we colored our pictures of the Great Wall, learned to say "Shi Huang Ti", and went outside to play chinese jumprope.

The egg olympics

Today we held the Egg Olympics.

There were exciting competitions in the egg dive, chariot races, and the egg roll.

We began with a parade around the "athletic field" and ended by crowning the champions with wreaths of laurel...okay, it was just grass.

Improving vocabulary

I remember when my cousin was two or three years old my aunt taught her to say, "I have an extensive vocabulary."

Nowadays, I pay attention to vocabulary because it helps me communicate in more than one language. (I really need to increase my foreign language vocabulary.)
And because I teach vocabulary lessons to kids.

One day the boys' mom said she noticed her older son was using the word "disgusting" a lot lately, and he seemed to be using it correctly. She didn't know where he'd picked it up.
"That's from me," I said. "I say that all the time." And yeah, I'd noticed that both of them had begun using this new vocabulary, especially about penmanship.
Can't fault their usage, though.

Another word I heard the older boy use was "whatever". And I have my suspicions that he got that one from me, too. I cringed when I heard him say it to his neighborhood friends about their latest soccer 'rules'. Oh, he used it correctly, all right. He had the proper attitude behind it to imply all he meant to say. I'm really hoping he picked that up from someone other than me--can I blame it on tv?
But I very thoughtfully accept the responsibility of at least introducing the term to him, and also very thoughtfully consider being much more careful about saying it myself. Especially when the attitude I convey is: "whatever you say doesn't matter, listen to me".
Hmm. Not very nice.

The younger brother has started beginning his sentences with "actually..." I might have to take credit for that, too.

Ah so. Vocabulary. Good and bad.
I wanted you to know that I added a nifty thing to this page called AnswerTips. So if you double click on any word on this page, it should bring up the definition for you. Pretty cool, huh? I thought so.
I highly approve of positive vocabulary improvement.
If your looking for another way of improving your vocabulary and feeding the hungry, visit http://www.freerice.com/.