Lesson 1 (October): Texture Grade: 1

Transcription

1 Lesson Focus: A copy of artwork is different than the original artwork. Texture in art refers to the visual feel of the work. A collage is the art of making pictures by sticking cloth, pieces of paper, photographs, and other objects onto a surface. Art Focus: Harvest at La Crau by Vincent van Gogh Maudell Sleet s Magic Garden by Romare Bearden Materials from Art Smart Closet: Construction paper Texture Box this is a volunteer created box; please check the box to see if it needs to be refilled. Materials in box could be: sandpaper, material, ribbons, pom-poms, sequins, aluminum foil, wax paper, magazines; anything from home that you can find be creative. Materials in Classroom: Glue Scissors Crayons or markers Materials from Home: IMPORTANT: Bring in several items to show students that have different textures. Perhaps items that can be passes around (teddy bear, sandpaper, metal pan etc.) Optional: bring in a rock that has a lot of texture on it. Materials to add to the Texture Box Class Discussion (15 minutes) Thank you for inviting me into your classroom to be your Art Smart Volunteer! This year we re going to have fun talking and learning about artists and their art work. To begin with, I would like to ask you a few questions very important art questions. They are fun questions because they have so many answers. Washington Art Smart 1

2 What is art? Art can be music, film, photography, literature, sculpture or painting (add to this list if you can). Art helps us express ourselves. We use our senses, our emotions and our mind when we create art or view someone else s artwork! What is an original work of art? An original work of art is something that is creative and unique to the artist that made it. An original work is not copied: it is one-of-a-kind! When you do something differently than anyone else and create something new, it is original. If you want to be original, you don t copy what others do. I asked you these questions today because when I come in for Art Smart, we get to create art together and you will be creating your own original works of art. Art is fun and art is for everyone. When you create art, does what you are making need to look like the person s sitting next to you? No! You get to use your own imagination and creativity to express yourself. That s what makes art so fun! How many of you are already artists? (Encourage all students to raise their hands.) Yes we all are! Well, today I would like to talk to you about something you will use in art to make your art work come to life. I would like to talk to you about texture. What does the word texture mean? (Give students a chance to respond) Texture is how something feels to the touch. Bring out your texture examples to share and discuss. We can discover textures all around us simply by reaching out and touching something: our hair, our shoes, our desks; but how about in art? Washington Art Smart 2

3 How is texture created in art? Close your eyes and imagine a big rock. (This is where you could instead hold up a large rock to show students). Describe your rock. If you reached out and picked up your rock, how would it feel? Artists often want us to think that there are textures in their drawings or paintings even though they are creating their work on a smooth, flat surface. If I just drew a big circle, would that look like a rock? An artist would draw many lines on the surface, and use dark and light shadows to make the rock look bumpy, smooth or even sharp. (You could draw an example to show.) Let s take another look at the way artists used texture in their paintings. Some artists create pictures on which you can feel different kinds of texture on the surface. They do this with thin and thick paints. Here is a painting called Harvest at La Crau by Vincent Van Gogh. (This painting is sometimes called The Blue Cart. Add facts about van Gogh if you feel you have time.) Describe what you see in the painting? (Fences, fields of wheat, hills, a town, blue sky, a blue cart, haystack, ladders, barns, horse-drawn cart, patches of land, trees, people) What objects do you see that are made by humans, and what objects are made by nature? Describe the textures of some of the things mentioned. Do the lines in the human-made things look different from the lines in the natural things? (The lines of wheat and grass look thicker and full of texture. The man-made items are smoother and not as detailed or varied with textures.) Washington Art Smart 3

4 Look closely at the painting. How do you think the artist made the grass and the bushes look the way they do? (Van Gogh applied thicker paint and worked it with his brush he was known to apply paint directly to the canvas and then work it into the painting.) What kind of brushstrokes did he use? (short, brisk) Does it look like anything is moving in the painting? (The lines of the grasses and field may make us feel that there is movement. While van Gogh painted this picture, he was outside. While he painted he was bothered by high winds and mosquitoes!) The second painting we are going to look at is actually a collage. A collage is a picture made by pasting down different items. Artists can use any number of materials to make a collage: paper, cloth, ribbons, metal, newspaper clippings etc. The title of this collage is called Maudell Sleet s Magic Garden by the artist Romare Bearden. The artist created this collage by combining splashes of paint with parts of cut up photographs. (Add facts if there s time.) Describe what you see in the painting? (A woman in an outdoor setting, there is a rustic house behind her. We see trees, her basket, petals) Where does this scene take place? (She is in a garden the title helps us imagine this.) The woman s name is Maudell Sleet. What do you think she is doing? (She is happily tending to her garden. You can see her garden hat and basket and sundress. Read artist background if you want to add more detail here.) Describe the textures of some of the things mentioned. (The colors of the flowers seem smooth and soft, misty and glowing, her dress looks soft and smooth, her basket and the house are bumpy, and you can see the roughness of the tree bark and the different textures of the branches and petals.) Washington Art Smart 4

5 How is this collage different from a photograph of someone working in her garden? (There is feeling here. Bearden wanted to create the peace and joy Maudell is experiencing by working in her garden. This is an original work; how an artist interprets a scene. A photo would only show what is there with no expressive qualities.) Why do you think an artist might choose to do a collage instead of photograph a scene? (To express him/herself, to show others how they see, to have the viewer experience the scene in a new way, to evoke emotion, to tell a story) Does it feel like there is movement in this collage? (The colors and textures create a peaceful rhythm of the woman in her surroundings blending.) Washington Art Smart 5

6 Art Activity (15 minutes) Magic Garden Collage Explanation for Presenter: Students will be making a textural collage of a magic garden like Bearden. They may draw an outline or several items in their garden first and then fill the composition in with items from the texture box. Several volunteers agree the best way to handle this project is to make-up individual baggies for the students ahead of time. That way everyone gets a sample of everything. When time is up, you could either collect the baggies and pass them on to another volunteer, or allow the students to take home their baggies. Explanation to students: Now I want you to spend some time being artists. Today you are going to make your own magic garden collage. Think about what colors and shapes you would find in your garden. Think about what textures you would find. Each of you will choose a piece of construction paper to begin with. Please get your glue and scissors out of your desk. You will each be getting a few different items from my texture box. Find a place for it in your garden. Think about its texture and how you can use it: part of a flower, rock, clouds, tree etc. You may color your collage as well, adding in any other garden elements or background designs. Washington Art Smart 6

7 Artist/Artwork Background Information: (Reference for Presenter) Artist: A person who creates works of art. Original: Something that is fresh and unusual, not copied. Texture: The way something feels on the surface, i.e. rough, smooth, bumpy. Collage: A work of art created by pasting different objects onto a surface. Title: A name given to something. Vincent van Gogh Vincent Van Gogh was born in a small village in Holland. As a child, he liked to walk in the marshes and fields and study birds, insects and flowers. When van Gogh left school, he went to work for his uncle, who was an art dealer. In 1875 his uncle sent him to work in Paris, where he visited the great museums and art galleries. Van Gogh thought he might become an artist and in 1886 moved to Paris. He began painting in the Impressionist tradition, in which artists showed their impressions of the effect of light on the color and texture of objects. Soon, however, he developed his own, more expressive style. Later, he moved to Arles, a town in Provence in the south of France. Van Gogh died only two years later, but he produced beautiful paintings during his lifetime. Much of what is known today about van Gogh was learned from his seventeen-year correspondence with his younger brother, Theo. Harvest at La Crau In the summer of 1888, van Gogh walked around the French countryside outside Arles. He carried with him his canvases, paints, and easel. Several times he visited La Crau (lah KROH) three miles from Arles. He drew and painted scenes in La Crau many times. While he was painting, he was bothered by mosquitoes and high winds, but he did not let that stop him. In Harvest at La Crau, van Gogh used shades of green and yellow, which he thought of as the colors of friendship. The viewer s eyes are led by careful brushstrokes from fences and fields of wheat in the foreground to hills, a town, and the blue sky in the background. Washington Art Smart 7

8 A blue cart is in the center, with a haystack and ladders to its left and barns and a horse-drawn cart behind. Van Gogh painted from an imaginary point of view. In this way, he showed more of the scenery than he could actually see from the ground. The composition, textures and colors make Harvest at La Crau one of van Gogh s most admired paintings. Romare Bearden ( ) Romare Bearden was born in North Carolina and moved to New York with his parents when he was a child. As a boy, he was inspired by the artists of the Harlem Renaissance, a period that produced a great outpouring of African American music, literature, dance, and art. Bearden did not decide to become a professional artist until he was in his twenties. He studied art at the Art Students League in New York City but supported himself as a social worker. He also gave up painting for a time in favor of songwriting, but in the 1950s he started to paint again. Bearden worked with various media, including acrylics, watercolors, oils, and photographic enlargements. However, late in his career, he started to experiment with collages. In his earliest collages, Bearden used pictures cut out of magazines. In his later works, he drew and painted on his collages as well. In addition to being an artist, Bearden also wrote and lectured about African American artists, helping gain greater exposure for them. Whether he expressed himself through art, writing, or music, Bearden shared deep feeling about his family, his memories, and his community. Maudell Sleet s Magic Garden This is a collage representation of a backyard gardener joyfully caring for well-tended flowers. The gardener herself is shown in calm blues and greens, while around her, the fresh beauty of the garden is shown through a variety of shapes and bright, various colors. The flowers, the house, and the clothes of the gardener all show variations of color and shadows produced by the sunlight. Washington Art Smart 8

9 Although Bearden used media, he is best known for collages like this one. Bearden used stories from history and stories about people and events in his community in his artwork. Many of his subjects came from his memories, especially those of his childhood in North Carolina. Info taken from Art Express Poster One tale Bearden evoked in his series was his memory of a woman named Maudell Sleet. As an adult, he remembered a widowed woman who had valiantly run a farm and exquisitely tended a garden by herself. He also remembered that, as a child, he had seen this woman as infused with a magical exuberance due to her green thumb and her generous offerings of just picked fruit. Handwritten text accompanying the collage reads: "I can still smell the flowers she used to give us and still taste the blackberries." Titled "Maudell Sleet s Magic Garden," (Figure 1), this vibrant collage vividly suggests Bearden s warm childhood memory of fecundity and abundance. Smaller than a sheet of paper, the collage is intimate in size and monumental in color. Rich reds, oranges, yellows, and greens form the lush layered world that the gifted gardener enlivens. The woman, attuned to her gorgeous handiwork and radiant with its bounty, strikingly resembles Alice Walker s 1974 memory of her own mother and her garden. In her classic essay "In Search of Our Mothers Gardens"--written four years before Bearden s exhibit--walker reminisced about her mother: I notice that it is only when my mother is working in her flowers that she is radiant, almost to the point of being invisible--except as Creator: hand and eye. She is involved in work her soul must have. Ordering the universe in the image of her personal conception of Beauty. 6 Alice Walker also reminisced about her mother s garden: And I remember people coming to my mother s yard to be given cuttings from her flowers; I hear again the praise showered on her because whatever rocky soil she landed on, she turned into a garden. A garden so brilliant with colors, so original in its design, so magnificent with life and creativity, that to this day people drive by our house in Georgia--perfect strangers and imperfect strangers--and ask to stand or walk among my mother s art. 7 Taken from the Anyone Can Fly Foundation website Washington Art Smart 9

10 A collage (From the French: coller, to glue) is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. A collage may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, photographs and other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or canvas. The origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but this technique made a dramatic reappearance in the early 20th century as an art form of novelty. The term collage derives from the French "coller" meaning "glue". This term was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the beginning of the 20th century when collage became a distinctive part of modern art. From Wikipedia Texture, another element of art, is used to describe either the way a threedimensional work actually feels when touched, or the visual "feel" of a two-dimensional work. Take rocks, for example. A real, 3-D rock might feel rough or smooth, and definitely feels hard when touched or picked up. A painter, depicting a rock, would create the illusions of these qualities through use of color, line, shape, etc. Washington Art Smart 10