Happy Birthday Emily Carr!

I was late in finding Emily, but couldn't be happier to know about her now. What a cool, resilient, determined, independent, talented woman to study! She lived in Victoria, British Columbia from December 13, 1871-March 2, 1945. At a time when women just weren't famous artists, she rose to become a Canadian icon. And cool fact, she was a writer AND a painter! Also cool fact, she met Georgia O-Keeffe (another strong and famous female painter) in New York in 1930. And in 1971 and 1991, Canadian postal stamps were made in her honor!

But enough with the random cool facts. Watch this video for a quick biographical introduction. Or read about her here and look through a gallery of her works.

Project time!

Looking at her work with your kids, ask questions like these: what do you think makes her art unique? How would you describe her style? What colors did she use most often? What subject matter(s) do you see? What kinds of lines did she use for her skies? For her trees? 

Really emphasize the organic, flowy nature of her lines. And then this is a great opportunity to discuss value (the lightness or darkness of tone and color)! You can find tons of value exercise worksheets to print out online to get warmed up. And then doing a painting like Emily Carr provides a great practice at mixing their own colors! I told my students we were doing a landscape, but keeping it simple. Three trees at most, some grass and maybe a mountain at most. We first focused just on the sky. I only gave them blue, white and if they insisted, purple and told them to think of her lines, think about gradually changing color from light to dark, and to fill all or most of the page with their sky. We let that dry. After it had, I gave them more colors and encouraged them to add trees/mountains/land on top. I LOVE their paintings!!! Look at how awesome and unique they are: 

Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci (project 2)

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.

Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci (project 3)

"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!

Inspired by... Leonardo Da Vinci!

Continuing with our first artist, Leonardo da Vinci, I have finished our first project video! It can be a fun, short project for young kids that I can almost promise will get them giggling. For older, more serious students it can be that as well as a longer study that could really improve their observation and drawing skills. I'd recommend getting them a sketchbook if they're really getting into it. But for starters, you'll just need paper, pencil and a partner (or a mirror or camera). It will take anywhere from a few minutes to a whole week to complete! Hope you enjoy!

Inspired by ... Leonardo da Vinci (Project 1):

If you need to use my photos for reference, here they are thanks to my willing volunteer model (although I really recommend drawing from life if you can because it's just a whole different experience to change something 3D into a 2D drawing)!

Also, here's a link to a really fun Mona Lisa parody project that I've done with my kids and students before. They LOVED it. I recommend explaining what a parody is and doing a quick Google search of Mona Lisa parodies. Lots of giggles. My personal favorite is still my daughter's Hulk-A-Lisa. Hahahaha.

Have fun and keep being creative!