Posts Tagged ‘artists’

Johannes Vermeer Art Projects for Kids

Monday, January 21st, 2019

vermeer-art-projects-for-kids

This post contains affiliate links. I was given access to the class to blog about it.

This is the third post in the series Mixing with the Masters: Volume 2, which includes six famous artists, with three works of art for your kids to re-create from each artist. The first week we showed you our projects for Henri Matisse, which were really colorful. Last week we did some fun art activities for Albrecht Dürer, including charcoal, ink printing, and watercolor. Today we will complete our short series of our favorite three artists by doing some fun art projects by Johannes Vermeer.

Girl with a Pearl Earring Mixed Media

The first work of art by Vermeer that we created is this mixed media girl. We painted a canvas black the day before starting this project. My kids chose different colors of scrapbooking paper for the turban, scarf, and shirt. You can print off the template if you need help with the face, but since you have to paint over the face anyway, you will need to look at Alisha’s artwork in the video to add the finishing touches to the eyes, nose, and mouth.

girl-with-pearl-earring-vermeer

I don’t know how my son got his eyes to look so life-like. (His is the first pictured above.) I think it’s because the eyeballs looked off to the right rather than the middle. My son’s picture reminded me a little of the Mona Lisa, which we did for another mixed media class in the past. Her eyes follow you as you sway to the right or to the left.

The Milkmaid Gouache Painting

This was a fun watercolor painting where we used brighter gouache paints. This milkmaid is pouring water into a bowl. The food on the table reminds me of a still life picture I did back in high school when I lived in Guatemala. We had a fruit bowl in the middle of the table that we had to sketch and then paint. Still life is a classic assignment for students learning to draw and paint.

milkmaid-gouache-painting

The Little Street–Line & Wash

I loved this cartoon-like line and wash watercolor painting! We started by sketching the buildings and street with pencil. We added the details of brickwork and window panes. Then we painted in an exaggerated, messy way, leaving some white space to create the cartoon-like effect.

little-street-line-wash

My daughter loved the way her sketch came out. If you look closely, you will see the wooden shutters on the windows, drawn with precision and detail. I like the perspective in her doorways. She does a lot of drawing in her free time, mostly Japanese-style cartoons. She decided to lean a broom against the wall inside one of the doorways.

building-sketch

We really enjoyed the three artists that we studied, and some day we might come back and do the other three, since there are six artists in the series. If you would like to grab this set of classes for your own kids, you can get them here. This is a high-quality art course, and my kids learned so much!

Albrecht Dürer Art Projects for Kids

Monday, January 14th, 2019

albrecht-durer-art-projects-for-kids
This post contains affiliate links. I was given access to the class to blog about it.

This is the second post in the series Mixing with the Masters: Volume 2, which includes six famous artists, with three fun works of art for your kids to re-create from each artist. Last week we showed you our projects for Henri Matisse, which were colorful and slightly abstract. This week we will focus on Albrecht Dürer.

Charcoal Young Hare

Our first work of art by Dürer is made with charcoal on tan paper. You will need at least one charcoal pencil, which you can get at an art supply store. You will also need a smudger. (I’m not sure what Alisha calls the white thing that smudges. I think she gave it a name like Alfred or something. Ha!) The other pencil you will need is a white pencil, which will make the fur pop on this drawing.

charcoal-young-hare

The fur on the bunny is fluffier in the front than in the back. Alisha gave step-by-step instructions in the video while we drew the bunnies on our clipboards.

The Fifth Knot Carving & Printing

Albrecht Dürer carved lots of woodcut patters that looked like labyrinths. The engravings he made could be dipped in ink and pressed onto paper like an old-fashioned printing press. For this art activity, you can carve on a rubber carving block, or if you’re broke like we are, just use some left-over styrofoam from meat that you bought at the store. Make sure to wash the styrofoam with soap and water and dry it thoroughly before carving this simple knot in it:

albrecht-durer-stamps

Oh, when I say simple, I mean the one that is the shape of a snowflake, which Alisha gives the template for. We used a wooden skewer to carve on the styrofoam. I branched off and make a Celtic cross, since I’ve been fascinated with Celtic crosses for years and have a collection of them in my closet. Back when I lived in England, I loved to travel around, and Celtic crosses were really popular necklaces, especially at castle and cathedral gift shops.

Iris Yroiana Gouache & Watercolor

Dürer did a series of nature studies and botanical paintings. This iris is one of them. We used gouache and watercolor for this painting. Always make sure to use watercolor paper rather than regular computer paper when you are watercoloring. It truly makes a huge difference in your painting, as the colors soak into the paper in a much better way on the higher-quality paper.

Iris-Yroiana-Gouache-Watercolor

We focused on different shades of blue and green, adding water to lighten the colors. The gouache was much brighter than the watercolors.

fun-with-durer

Once again, we had a ball discovering more about another famous artist. If you would like to grab this set of classes for your own kids, you can get them here. Stay tuned for the next artist in our series!

MC Escher Party

Friday, October 7th, 2016

MC-Escher-Party

My 16-year-old son has always loved MC Escher, so this year we decided to throw him an MC Escher party for his birthday. MC Escher is a modern artist who depicts surreal scenes like stairs impossibly going up and down, or water flowing up and down at the same time. He uses a lot of salamanders and fish in his designs, and he makes tesselations (rotating shapes), which you will see below in our art projects.

MC Escher Party Invitation

First we printed this coloring page, and we pasted the colored fish (we used colored pencils) onto light blue card stock paper. We outlined the fish to make them stand out, and we wrote the party information inside the card.

MC-Escher-invitation

MC Escher 3D Shapes

I found {aff} this book with perforated MC Escher 3D shapes. The pages are colorful and thick, and you fold each shape according to the instructions, gluing or taping the shapes together. The patterns on the shapes are from the artist’s famous paintings.

MC-Escher-shapes

We used these 3D shapes to decorate the center of the table. I used little fish crackers as confetti. I also gathered the art supplies that we needed for our tesselations.

MC-Escher-3D-shapes

MC Escher Cake

I had to think long and hard about the cake, because the thought of making stairs go up and down on a cake seemed impossible. I toyed with many other ideas until I settled on this one. I found gummy fish at the store, and at that moment I knew what I wanted to do.

cake-waves

First I baked a rectangular chocolate cake, and I tinted the frosting blue. I used a fork to make waves. Then I placed the fish coming and going, as they would in an MC Escher painting. It came out great!

MC-Escher-cake

MC Escher Art Project

Here is a fun art project you can do with tessellation, where a shape is repeated over and over again, covering the entire paper:

We made modified shapes based on an equilateral triangle. We rotated the shape, using it as a stencil over and over on our paper.

tesselation-drawing

Here are some of the finished tesselations:

MC-Escher-tesselation

drawing-a-tesselation

MC-Escher-tesselations

Didn’t they come out great? My son thoroughly enjoyed his party!