I'm super excited to introduce you to our new mystery artist. But he or she really needs no further introduction, since it's all in the video anyway. Let me know if you guessed it!
What was your favorite fact about our mystery artist?
For additional and current information, check out these articles:
Also, I definitely recommend the book "______________ and the Pope's Ceiling" for serious students. Not a quick read by any means but FASCINATING details about the artist, his methods, the times, the Catholic Church, and anything else at all possibly related. Lots of stuff I haven't found anywhere else.
So we ran into ridiculous difficulties making this video, such as the neighbor's lawn mower. Don't even ask my husband about the times he spent double digit hours editing it, just to have it disappear or not open or revert or any of the other horrible things that haunt his dreams. But I think it's worth it! This project is a really cool combination of art and math, proportion and fractions, beauty and calculations. I love it when subjects naturally cross over and I especially love it when I get the chance to show how cool and difficult art is and how it's completely connected to every other subject. Here are a list of the proportions Leonardo recorded, as mentioned in the video:
1. Arm span = Height
2. Head x 8 = Height
3. Forearm x 4 = Height
4. Foot x 6 = Height
5. Shoulders x 4 = Height
6. Hand x 10 = Height
Extras:
1/3 Face = Chin to Nostrils = Nostrils to Eyebrows = Eyebrows to Hairline = Ear
Palm = Width of 4 Fingers
Foot = Width of 4 Palms
Height = 24 Palms
Elbow to Armpit = 1/8 Height
Bottom of Neck to Hairline = 1/6 Height
Middle of Chest to top of Head = 1/4 Height
Palm Width (NOT hand) = 1/24 Height
So without further ado, here's the video friends:
And you know how I said if you make somebody's head too big, they'll resemble an alien or a baby? The opposite is true as well. If you make a baby's head too small in comparison to it's body, they'll look like a creepy, little adult that has some sort of Benjamin Button thing going on. Just ask Giotto, who painted this Madonna and Child about 150 years before Leonardo was painting Virgin of the Rocks:
For more history about the namesake of the Vitruvian Man, click here.
Should Leonardo not be getting all the credit for his Vitruvian Man? Was it a result of collaboration or worse, copying? See what the Smithsonian has to say here.
For more in-depth conversation about the mathematical measurements, click here.
For an interesting video by James Earle (unfortunately not James Earle Jones) about the Vitruvian Man's place in the universe, click here.
I believe I actually discovered Alma Thomas thanks to Pinterest. See?! All those hours I've spent losing myself in a Pinterest vortex were worth it! Ha. No probably not, but I do really love Alma Thomas. And I have to admit that I missed the chance to post this on her actual birthday, so here is a Happy Belated Birthday to Alma Thomas (9/22)! I just couldn't stand to miss it (although technically I suppose I did miss it) because this is one of my favorite lessons of all-time. So let's begin with a little background on our famous, but little-known artist.
Alma Woodsey Thomas is another inspiring artist, who like Grandma Moses, didn't get her start until later in life. She taught art for 38 years in Washington D.C., and occasionally showed her work in shows featuring African American artists, but didn't begin to paint seriously until she was 69 (she was born in 1891 so what year would that have been?). However, by then she had painful arthritis, which made painting difficult. Most people would've given up at this point but when a museum wanted to display her art, she went about creating a new, more abstract style with bright pure color in shapes or lines that still hinted at natural forms. Instead of telling you what her art does or how it makes you feel, why don't you take a look at the following images (and find lots more online) and pretend to be an art critic writing an article about her for the paper? Have fun and be descriptive!
The Eclipse
Moving Heaven and Earth
Starry Night and the Astronauts
Untitled from Music Series
So when I was preparing the art project, I knew the younger kids in particular would have a super hard time resisting the urge to paint large strokes with their paintbrushes instead of making small dashes close together. No chance most kids would have the self-control to be so deliberate as to leave the nice white lines in between colors. And that's what makes it really pop! So I put away the paintbrushes and got out building blocks:
We looked at examples of her work, talked about what made it unique, and what they should strive for if they wanted their painting to look like hers. I really emphasized her use of repetition and variety. I then demonstrated how to use the blocks to print the shapes on the paper and let them go to town. It worked so well, that I did it the same way for my older group of students, except I gave them Legos so they could make smaller dashes. A few of them resisted, so I let the older students use brushes if they promised to leave white :) Look at how awesome my 8 year-old daughter's turned out:
Later, we tried it again but with gluing pre-cut scraps shapes on. This worked really well too and was good for the pre-K/kindergarten crowd in particular. Here's my son's finished project (it used to have nice, bright colors but has been hanging in a window and the sun sadly bleached them out):
So much fun! One last cool fact - her painting Resurrection is the first painting by an African American woman to hang in the White House's permanent collection. So Happy Belated Birthday Miss Thomas!
Check out the article here for a more in-depth history.
"Thus if one is to be five times as distant, make it five times bluer." That's what Leonardo wrote about his conclusions or observations about aerial perspective, which we more often call atmospheric perspective in art classes today. It's such a science/mathy way to give art instruction! I'd expect nothing less from our true Renaissance Man. Today's project is a quick and easy one, or it can be used as a warm-up practice for a fabulous painting.
As a good reference point, here is a late medieval Italian painting that didn't use atmospheric perspective:
Look at how flat it looks! And confusing because there are shadows on those mountains that make us want to believe they're 3-D, but... And the people on them are clearly much smaller than those on horses, but... There is no background because the mountains jump forward along with everything else (now it clearly wasn't meant to be completely realistic because the sky is gold, which is seen a lot in Medieval art, so we could be really generous and assume they flattened the scenes on purpose for some reason? Or possibly that they didn't know how to make the background recede so they embraced it and painted the sky gold to look like it was on purpose. Which do you think was the case? Or did they even think of it or care? And if the latter is the case, kudos to them for working with what they had but it's an example of how learning the rules can improve your own art or at least give you more options to work with)!
If you want to follow-up, you're welcome to use my photos as reference:
Or go out and take some of your own! You'll probably notice this marvelous effect more now and wonder why it's "purple mountains majesty" instead of blue. Ah well.
For further study...
Really cool site that shows the "gradual change of color and tone with distance."
An in-depth discussion about atmospheric perspective from The Helpful Art Teacher.
Want to look more into the science of atmospheric or aerial perspective? Go here.
Can you find other artists that really nailed it when it comes to atmospheric perspective? How about any that ignored it/broke the rules? Here is a start. Have fun!
So this is a fun, quick, and easy little creativity activity. As long as you have paper and pencil or pen, you can do it anywhere! It's a great way to keep kids busy when waiting at the doctor's or when trying to keep kids quiet at church. Not that I've ever used it for the latter...we always just sit there and listen perfectly of course. Uh hum. And it's a great way to get that creativity flowing! Which is, perhaps, why the kids are often better at it than I am!
You need a partner and to each have a piece of paper. Both of you draw a quick scribble and then pass your paper to the other person (the scribble really works best if it's simple and quick, not filling in he whole page with lead). Take a few seconds to stare at the scribble you've been handed, trying to see a picture inside of it or what it could be part of, and then make it happen! Here my 9-year old and I exchanged scribbles and turned them into a snouted snail and a plant-eating dinosaur:
Here my 5-year old son and I switched scribbles and turned them into a cool sunglasses guy with a wicked scar, and a "steigacric" otherwise known as a stegosaurus. We'll be working on spelling this school year 😜
And then my 9 year-old and 5 year-old exchanged scribbles and turned them into a werewolf and a horseback rider:
The possibilities are endless! And prone to create giggles. So get your creativity on and have fun!
