Artist of the moment

Thanks to a neighbour/Facebook friend/fellow art lover, we got into a 'past the art on' thang on Facebook. (I'm ready to sign out of fb tbh...if it wasn't for this blog and the fact I live abroad).

 

So, she posted an artist and a piece of work...whomever liked it would then be sent another artist...they would then find and post a piece of work and so on. It appears I have 2, maybe 3 art appreciators on fb. So its bouncing between a few of us at the moment!

 

I found Peter Doig for my neighbour, thinking of the Scottish connection.

 

And he's now my favourite artist of the moment. Dreamlike landscapes and magical scenes.

Milky Way. 1989/90. Oil on canvas.

 

The Architect's Home in the Ravine. 1991. Oil on canvas.

Orange Sunshine. 1995. Oil on canvas.

The Hitch-Hiker. 1989/90. Oil on sack cloth.

I tell you what, it has really got me fired up to take my Art History Diploma when football season is over in April!

Artist of the moment at school

Well, it's not actually a lesser well known one this time. But maybe a lesser well known piece of his.

It's Vincent van Gogh's Avenue of Poplars in Autumn.

      

I chose it for the colours, and the atmosphere that he has created, a peaceful, calm end to the day. But also, and more importantly because the children have become used to seeing one particular style or the most famous of his paintings; I wanted them to see that there is sometimes more to an artist and their style.

A few of the children's' comments:

 

"It's very quiet"

 

"The gap above the house looks a lot like smoke"

 

"It looks amazing" (a standard response despite the prompt cards I have up!)

"Very shadowed and unique"

"It is very nice, he used dull colours in the picture and the shadows are unique"

"Colourful"

"I like it!"

"I like the shadow"

"I like the sunset"

First week back...

...two days in and I'm toasted!!! My Christmas holidays must have been relaxing!

I've come across some new and super lesson ideas this week, most likely to be tweaked for me and my ways. The art teacher community has helped me build a much more varied and fluid curriculum for the school and I am lucky that I have the freedom to do so. I'm already liking to keep things fresh and new every year, for the kids' benefits as well as mine. And to vary the corridors from term to term, year to year.

 

Today I had my lovely Year 4s, both classes. As it is an incomplete week being the first week back and all, I don't start big projects as kids are still on holidays. Go figure. That'd be nice. Anyway, it's too much hassle and catch-up. 

So I had a cool and fun activity from Goddess Patti at Deep Space Sparkle, one of her 45 minute ones. 

http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2011/04/04/robot-line-drawing/

 

Doing this today and following my evaluation I've been inspired to build a block of focused lessons across the key stage on line. Some of year 4's line creation and control was rather dubious and concerning so I thought, across the board, line work should be practised at the start of term, or any time I guess, to get their eye and hand back in after the holidays. A possible block for after Easter so nobody misses out.

Year 4 also learn a little about Wasily Kandinsky and his passion for music and painting. We have fun with music seeing how it motivates us to create shape and line at the end of the summer term but this could be spring, again to keep their hand in.

Originally from http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=698199

Year 3 can have a go at line drawing Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night. We do a lesson on mark marking that ties in with Van Gogh so this would work together.

Originally from http://www.artsonia.com/museum/gallery.asp?exhibit=741877

 I could even make use of this Pin: 

http://pinterest.com/pin/24136547976922989/

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Artist of the Month - September

I seem to have had a run of interesting and intriguing female artists and this month was going to be another one that I discovered whilst back in the UK. But then since I showed my dad my last painting weve had a back and forth text conversation about the artist that my latest work reminded him of.

 

So why not...this month's artist is Roger Dean. And he's from my home county of Kent!

On first glance, he really isn't an artist that would appeal to me. I asked my Dad if he would have his work on his wall...maybe back in the day but not now. As I've looked at his work more I am drawn more to it and notice more detail each time and I'm realising that is a basis for having a piece of art on display. He's definitely going to be an inspiration but his technique I can only dream of!

Dean was born in Ashford in Kent but travelled well as a child being the son of an British Army engineer father. He came back to England in the late '50s and went to the Canterbury College of Art. He is actually a silversmith and furniture designer by trade with architecture being part of his CV as well. However, he became a much respected and reknowned rock artist in the 1960s. He has designed many album covers for the likes of Yes and Asia and has published books of his work. He became known for the distinctive bubble style that he designed for Yes' album Close to the Edge...

...it's this album that my painting reminded my Dad of:

 

He is otherwise known for the fantasy scenes he paints, the almost sci-fi scenes but he sees himself as more of a landscape painter than a fantasy artist. Arches, floating islands, sweeping and swirling paths are all features of these organic dreamy landscapes. He mostly works in watercolour, but many of his paintings have mixed media including gouache, ink, enamel, crayon and collage.

His website is rogerdean.com (althought they are currently having server probs) and his Facebook page is 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Roger-Dean-Official-Page/267978434150?fref=ts

 

Enjoy x

A look at other Art Bloggers

I've just taken a look through my blogs in my reading list...I usually head straight to Cassie Stephens...she makes me giggle...and she has this awesome guitar apron that I WANT!! However, today Olive at Olive ART caught my eye again as she hit on a subject that's at the back of my mind for the year coming up.

I think I focus on it already but I really want the children to start to automatically offer an opinion on a piece of famous art or even an artist's style. I know I encourage discussion and opinion in a structured format that leads into the lesson but would like to find another way that tells them it's OK to ask a question or offer a thought at any time. So I liked this idea from Olive and also this one too that makes up more of a lesson.

Olive ART! Do You???: Looking at Art: She has a bulldog clip with her chosen painting and her bubble whiteboard next to it with some magnetic words. And this allows the children to choose their word that they associate with the picture, whether it is something they see or something that they feel or even the mood of the painting. Whichever it may be, as she says, it encourages the children to learn to 'see' more in art.

Her other recent development I like would to see how she gets on with, has the pupil discussing the quote and the piece of art, do they like or connect with the painting, do they agree or disagree with the artist's quote, and the children concluding from this what it is to make art...it's not just about paint and pencils and making marks. I'd like to do this with my year 6s.

I would have activities like this in an area every week and for every year in which they could discuss, describe, think about a piece of art, a type of art movement or an artist. I used to do things like this with Maths or Literacy and especially Science, around the classroom, for early finishers, say.

(Having said that, I am a peripatetic...well, between the classrooms, not schools...art teacher...I have yet to have my own art room. We are having a new school built and plans were for it to be completed for the school year 2014/15 with me having a room. However...seeing as we're in the Middle East, it ain't working like that. And I will continue to lug that huge not-quite kid-proof Ace Hardware toolbox around, with it's handle and clips held on with bits of string. I'm going to see how much longer it'll last!)

Thanks Olive, you've inspired me to start collecting and creating activities like this for my fantasy classroom! In the meantime, for a plenary at least.

Artist of the Month - July

Bloody hell, another intriguing artist I've got myself wrapped up in!

 

This month it is Tamara de Lempicka.

 

 

I had been grabbed by her Auto-Portrait (Tamara in the Green Bugatti) a few months back. I found the picture at a time that I was searching for 1920s inspiration for a themed ball we were going to. I became hooked on the style and was mesmerised by other images from that time.

 

It is just an instant dash of art-deco, it epitomises the era. Angular, geometric, modern and stylised yet she still has the sultry eyes, the bobbed, finger waved hair…

The BBC design website gives a great synopsis of the style, happenings, people etc of the time.

The reason that I decided on de Lempicka was that during the staff bonding trip to Dubai at the start of the month, in Neos bar, 63 stories up, was Tamara in the Green Bugatti. I didn’t see her until we left. So when I saw it in my new favourite bar in Dubai and recognised it, I was stopped in my tracks! It was the wrong way round admittedly but it made me squeal! I realised how much I like the picture and has got me looking at her life and other work.

 She was born into wealth and bourgeoisie, a lawyer father and a famous socialite mother. Her actual name was Maria Gorska. At the opera at the age of 15, she cast eyes on the man she knew she would marry. And three years later she married Tadeusz Lempicki. Possibly a relationship based on dowry and wealth initially, with him being unwilling to find work after they escaped the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. Nonetheless, they had a daughter, Kizette in 1916 (birth name Marie-Christine). 

 

Tamara’s reputation as a bisexual in the roaring 20s was notorious; this attitude and behaviour at this time was unheard of. She became well known for her scandalous affairs with both men and women. Many of her paintings featured this sexual energy. She was quite a flamboyant character in many respects who seemed to care more for her work and her social life. She abandoned her daughter with her mother but never lost her really, she painted with her as a subject or a likeness, consistently.

 

    

Of her mother, Kizette wrote

“She was strict with others but she was also strict with herself. One was not allowed to be tired, one was not allowed to put off for tomorrow."

Tamara eventually married Baron Raoul Kuffner after she became his mistress. Through him she regained her place in high society and maintained her social life and her high-standing commissions.

I personally think she was a dynamic and strong woman, to the point of selfish maybe…?  I am drawn to her art every time, it’s haunting yet dreamlike and holds my deeper attention for longer than most other pieces. She has a distinctive and elegant style and as I’ve said, it holds the style, glamour, the sultriness of the art deco period for me.

 

Sources
http://www.tamara-de-lempicka.org/biography.html
http://www.tamara-de-lempicka.com/
http://www.delempicka.org/tamaras-life/biography.html
http://theartsyladies.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/tamara-de-lempicka/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_artdeco.shtml
http://www.ohparasite.com/2011/11/dead-artists-society-tamara-de-lempicka.html
 

Artist of the Month - May

 

I had a few artists on my list I was going to choose from but actually I've chosen Georgia Keefe off the top of my head this month.

 

The reasons being are that a) I just keep hearing her name these last few weeks b) she appears in many primary art lessons on the internet and c) I want to find out why as I thought she renowned for provocative and erotic art.

So she is a popular topic for many art lessons in the primary school as I discovered. She hasn't featured in mine yet, no real reason. Well, maybe because of c) above!

Yet I had in my mind that her art was thought to be erotic, provocative, representing genitalia…how can we introduce children with this in my mind!? I was completely wrong…and if these monthly artists bios, not matter how brief, are to serve any purpose, it’d be to educate me! And that’ll do…

But then I have just raved about James Rizzi to Year 4 last term and he was a pothead! BUT he was a wonderfully lovely, charitable, genuine man so external impressions of the art or the artist should not matter when teaching. It's all too easy to let prejudices, bias and social expectations override a good piece of art. Just be. Just enjoy it for what it is. Year 4 did and had some bloomin' good fun making bowls with James Rizzi style art on!

Lesson plans or activities I have found (mainly on my beloved Pinterest) would use a Georgia O'Keeffe painting as a stimulus for a 3D paper flower sculpture for instance..Others have had their class inspired by her to produce work in oil pastels or watercolours. I remember my son made one in Year 1 (he is year 2 now) which I have still to get framed.

From www.vam.ac.uk: Georgia O'Keeffe, photography by Alfred Stieglitz, 1918, palladium print processed with mercury. Museum no. E.886-2003. Gift of the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, © The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation

A short biography. Georgia O'Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Photographer Alfred Stieglitz gave O'Keefe her first gallery show in 1916 and the couple married in 1924. O'Keeffe moved to New Mexico after her husband's death and was inspired by the landscape to create numerous well-known paintings. Georgia O'Keeffe died on March 6, 1986.

She was part of the abstract movement; her bleached skulls are famous enough but she is mostly known for her captivating floral paintings, the ones that could conjure up erotic undertones for some. Her early work was something different altogether. She began her career with clear, concise paintings of cities and buildings. Then in the 1920s would move on to the flowing close-ups of flowers we know her more for. I have just got lost in the pictures I have found on Pinterest, they are stunning. It's easy to get lost in the fluidity of them, they are truly ethereal.

 

Through my research I did find a website highlighting a scientific study finding that fertile women found her paintings sexier at certain times of the month. I would never have even considered to think that! What a great study! Anyway, it’s been done. Here is the report at livescience.com.

 


Did she vocalise an intent for her art to look like vaginas? Did she, like Picasso, not actually say a word and just want the viewer to see what they wanted to and come to their own conclusion? According to my '50 Modern Artists you Should Know' book in which she features, she was much like Picasso in this respect;

"These greatly magnified, open calyxes of orchids, lilies , or calls often arouse erotic associations, though O'Keeffe dismissed this interpretation of them. Rather, she said her aim was to simplify shapes so as to bring out the true essence of things".

She brought almost a photographic quality to her painting, a macro detail perhaps. Which would maybe reflect the very new field of photo optics in the 1920s.

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else."

Another new and lovely discovery. Another inspiring artist.

Incidentally, I’m currently loving my biography on Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera , very well written.

This Month's Artist - April

Another artist that Mad Murphy has brought to my attention is Dick Frizzell, another pop artist.

He's from Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. He brings in to his work icons from Kiwi kitsch. He's described as not just a pop artist but an artist in expressionist pop. This is something I'll be reading up on as I thought the two movements were very different to each other...how has he been described as the two together...? Mass consumerism of expression and emotion?

I always seem to be drawn to pop art yet not sure if I would ever have any on display in my home (maybe the Mickey to Tiki in the middle!) Yet when I paint or draw it’s never in any realist or impressionistic style, it’s always colour, full of pattern, abstract maybe (just read a definition of abstract art: free-hand jazz!). I think Rothko, Klimt and Kadinsky are my inspirations as far as abstract is concerned. I turn to Kahlo for colour. Richard Todd is another artist I like the look of. Maybe he'll feature soon in the monthly artist section.

This Month's Artist - March

This could be a new feature for the blog…we’ll see how it goes. I only thought of doing it this month as I have discovered a new inspirational artist, both as a person and as an artist. I offer no insightful opinion or any criticism of whichever artist I happen to write about, I haven't done the course ;-) It would merely be  to introduce the artist just because I am enjoying their work at the time.
 

So this month it is Frida Kahlo.

 

As I wrote before, I am eagerly awaiting her biography. But my fascination started with her only last year really. I remember seeing one of her portraits in a magazine and was intrigued simply by the person I saw in the paintings. With strong Latino features, sombre expression but so full of colour. Then I recently saw the movie on her life staring Salma Hayek and was mesmerised. I was just captured by how she dressed, I would be like that every day! And she wore flowers in her hair, I LOVE that!

Frida Kahlo de Rivera (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954) was a Mexican painter. Her self-portraits are probably what she is known more for. Her vibrant and colourful work has been described for its “pain and passion”. Her work is apparently revered by feminists because of her simple and realistic approach to the female form and experience. I’m no feminist (I think!) and I just love her use of colour and brush. Her native culture and cultural tradition are features of her work and has been put into the naive or folk art category. These are new art movements for me so that’s my next research project! Even surrealism has been applied to her work. Subtly maybe, not quite a Dali..in my opinion, remember! Here’s a biography of her taken from http://www.fridakahlo.com/

Frida was one of four daughters born to a Hungarian-Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent. She did not originally plan to become an artist. A survivor of polio, she entered a pre-med program in Mexico City. At the age of 18, she was seriously injured in a bus accident. She spent over a year in bed recovering from fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, and shoulder and foot injuries. She endured more than 30 operations in her lifetime and during her convalescence she began to paint.

Source: www.egodesign.ca

 

Her paintings, mostly self-portraits and still life, were deliberately naïve, and filled with the colors and forms of Mexican folk art. At 22 she married the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, 20 years her senior. Their stormy, passionate relationship survived infidelities, the pressures of careers, divorce, remarriage, Frida's bi-sexual affairs, her poor health and her inability to have children. Frida once said: "I suffered two grave accidents in my life…One in which a streetcar knocked me down and the other was Diego." The streetcar accident left her crippled physically and Rivera crippled her emotionally. 

Source: www.proa.org

During her lifetime, Frida created some 200 paintings, drawings and sketches related to her experiences in life, physical and emotional pain and her turbulent relationship with Diego. She produced 143 paintings, 55 of which are self-portraits. When asked why she painted so many self-portraits, Frida replied: "Because I am so often alone....because I am the subject I know best."
In 1953, when Frida Kahlo had her first solo exhibition in Mexico (the only one held in her native country during her lifetime), a local critic wrote:
"It is impossible to separate the life and work of this extraordinary person. Her paintings are her biography." 

At the time of her exhibition opening, Frida's health was such that her Doctor told her that she was not to leave her bed. She insisted that she was going to attend her opening, and, in Frida style, she did. She arrived in an ambulance and her bed in the back of a truck. She was placed in her bed and four men carried her in to the waiting guests.

Both Frida and Diego were very active in the Communist Party in Mexico. In early July 1954, Frida made her last public appearance, when she participated in a Communist street demonstration. 

Soon after, on July 13th, 1954, at the age of 47, Frida passed away. On the day after her death, mourners gathered at the crematorium to witness the cremation of Mexico's greatest and most shocking painter. Soon to be an international icon, Frida Kahlo knew how to give her fans one last unforgettable goodbye. As the cries of her admirers filled the room, the sudden blast of heat from the open incinerator doors caused her body to bolt upright. Her hair, now on fire from the flames, blazed around her head like a halo. Frida's lips seemed to break into a seductive grin just as the doors closed. Her last diary entry read: "I hope the end is joyful - and I hope never to return - Frida.".

Her ashes were placed in a pre-Columbian urn which is on display in the "Blue House" that she shared with Rivera. One year after her death, Rivera gave the house to the Mexican government to become a museum. Diego Rivera died in 1957. On July 12th, 1958, the “Blue House” was officially opened as the “Museo Frida Kahlo”.

Frida has been described as: "…one of history's grand divas…a tequila-slamming, dirty joke-telling smoker, bi-sexual that hobbled about her bohemian barrio in lavish indigenous dress and threw festive dinner parties for the likes of Leon Trotsky, poet Pablo Neruda, Nelson Rockefeller, and her on-again, off-again husband, muralist Diego Rivera."

Today, more than half a century after her death, her paintings fetch more money than any other female artist. A visit to the Museo Frida Kahlo is like taking a step back in time. All of her personal effects are displayed throughout the house and everything seems to be just as she left it. One gets the feeling that she still lives there but has just briefly stepped out to allow you to tour her private sanctuary. She is gone now but her legacy will live on forever….

One of the first shots of the film is of her house in Coyoacan. Bright blue walls, colourful flowers and plants, pieces of art. I would love to have a house that I could just paint and design for ME, in my style, to call my own. (I once painted our living room orange. Every wall. With terracotta stencils.) So the house she lived in for most of her life is now a museum...here is a link to the Trip Advisor reviews. It's on my wish list!

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/proggirl1/3219574891/

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bokononist/5861641618/

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7593077@N03/2981887849/

Through my research on Frida I found this great post highlighting the person Frida was. Never embarrassed and true to herself. I'm trying to live this way! Thanks amber, a lovely and inspiring post about this incredible woman.