Category Archives: Famous Artist

Art + Cooking Camp: Cherry Cake and Pointillism

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Bonjour! Here is an update on Day Four of my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. Today we tried out pointillism and made cherry clafoutis.

Pointillism

Pointillism is lots of fun for kids. They love the idea of creating art from dots of paint. We looked at pointillist artworks under extreme zoom at Google Art Project. Click here to see the extreme close up of Seurat’s ‘The Circus’ and click here to see Signac’s ‘The Port of St. Tropez’. For the art project, we did this fun Signac lesson with coloring sheet from the Practical Pages blog. The kids dotted their sheets using damp Q-Tips and pan watercolors. They filled in the tiniest areas with dots of colored marker.

One student made a pointillist cake! She lightly sketched her design in pencil, then filled in with dots of watercolor and marker. When it was dry, she erased the pencil lines.

(note: if you are looking for a whole class pointillism assignment, check out this Seurat mural project).

Cherry Clafoutis

We made a cherry clafoutis – a lovely French summer dessert with a texture that is a cross between a cake and a custard. CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE. Surprise – the kids LOVED pitting fresh cherries!

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Coming up later this week: the last day of art and cooking camp. Chocolate fondue and the completed Degas sculptures!

Art + Cooking camp:

Au Revoir and Bon Appetit!

Enjoy!

 

 

Art + Cooking Camp: Meringues and Degas

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Today was Day Three of my Paris-themed art and cooking camp. We began by making meringues and ended by beginning our Degas-inspired sculptures.

Meringues:

Meringues are really fun to make. CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE (AND VIDEO!). We had lots of practice separating eggs. Then we whipped those egg whites and sugar up, up, up into glossy peaks, and piped them onto the baking sheets using a pastry bag and a star tip. The kids had a lot of fun making ‘custom’ giant and mini meringues, and trying to make letter-shaped meringues.

making meringues

Unfortunately, meringues take forever to bake – at least two hours at 200 degrees F. Then they have to cool. So we won’t taste the completed meringues until tomorrow. Not the best choice for a three-hour AM camp. It was humid today – another meringue no-no. Oh well, at least we didn’t bake them on the last day of camp.

Degas-inspired Sculpture:

We talked about Degas. Degas was a French artist who is famous for creating snapshot-like pastel artworks of racehorses and ballet dancers. Unlike the other Impressionists, he did not focus on the quality of light, and created his work indoors (Actually, Degas did not consider himself an Impressionist). After his eyesight started to fail, he switched to sculpture. He initially sculpted his famous ‘Little Dancer Age 14’ in wax on a wire armature; it was later cast in bronze.

We created wire and foil armatures and covered them in plaster wrap. Some kids are creating dancers and some are creating animals. This took about an hour.

 

degas sculpture art campTomorrow we will make cherry clafouti and finish up our sculptures.

Enjoy (and bon appetit!)

Do you like to cook? Have you taught anyone to cook?

Art + Cooking Camp: Crepes and Monet

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What fun!  I just finished Day One of my Paris-themed art and cooking camp.  Today we made Banana-Nutella crepes on a real Parisian crepe griddle. We ended the morning with Impressionistic ‘mini-Monets’, created with chalk pastels and Shrinky Dinks shrinkable plastic.

Crepes

We started out by watching a YouTube video of a real Parisian crepe vendor. Then we mixed up the batter, all the while talking about how to measure out and combine the ingredients. CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE! I swear by my CucinaPro electric Crepe Maker for that real Parisian street food experience (note: compensated affiliate link).

Reyna tries her hand at crepe-making

R. tries her hand at crepe-making

Smile!

Smile!

‘Mini-Monets’

The ‘mini-Monet’ lesson from Blick is really fun and successful. You tape frosted Shrinky Dinks over an Impressionistic artwork, then trace over the brushwork using short strokes of chalk pastel. Shrink in a toaster oven and Voila!. We had 45 minutes for art – some kids made two pieces during that short time. Click here to see more examples.

Paige recreates Monet's haystacks in chalk pastel.

P. recreates Monet’s haystacks in chalk pastel.

Completed 'mini-Monets'. Not much taller than a quarter!

Completed ‘mini-Monets’. Not much taller than a quarter!

Tomorrow is Eiffel Tower day. Stay tuned for more photos later this week.

 

Enjoy!

(Note: this post contains compensated affiliate links)

Sub Plan: Matisse Vase of Flowers

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Here is a quick Matisse-inspired lesson suitable for grades K-1. All you need is copy paper and markers. It is just right for a substitute teacher, or anytime you need a low-mess 40-minute project.

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We began by looking at this painting by Matisse.

Matisse's Woman in a Purple Dress

Matisse ‘Purple Robe and Anemones’ 1937. Source: wikipaintings.org

We identified patterns in the artwork: I said, “thumbs up if you can see an orange striped wall…a vase with wavy stripes…a floor with black diamonds” etc.  We noticed Matisse used a lot of colors as well.  Next students folded the copy paper into quarters. I modeled how to draw of a vase of flowers on a pedestal in the very center of the paper.

Then the children drew a different colored pattern in each quadrant of the paper. They added a pattern to the pedestal and base as well. Some even added fruit to the pedestal, just like Matisse.

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We had enough time to watch this cute video of When Pigasso Met Mootisse by Nina Laden (via Storylineonline.net).

Enjoy!

 

Do you have a favorite sub plan? 

 

Wayne Thiebaud Ice Cream Cones Roundup

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Summer is almost here. Why not try a warm-weather twist on Wayne Thiebaud with an ice cream art lesson? Check out these ice cream cone lessons using paint, collage, papier-mache and more.

thiebaud cones

cone collage

Directed Draw/Paint:

  • 1. I discovered an entire Wayne Thiebaud unit at the fabulous Danish Fru Billedkunst (“Mrs. Fine Art”) blog. Click here for her step-by-step ice cream cone drawing diagram.

Our second graders began by folding their paper into quarters. The horizontal fold became the table edge. Students drew two cones on each side of the vertical fold. We used crayons and tempera cakes. Students had the option of painting a background, or cutting out their art and gluing it to construction paper. They looked so beautiful at our school art show (see photo at top of post).

Here are some more interesting ideas for Thiebaud-inspired ice cream fun:

Collage:

  • 2. Miss Young’s Art Room has a simple ice cream collage for kindergarten
  • 3. ARTASTIC! has a torn paper collage that would be great for using up all those paper scraps at the end of the year

Templates:

Group project:

  • 5. Kids Artists has a whole-class painted paper ice cream cone collage.

Papier Mache Sculpture:

  • 6. Phyl’s There’s a Dragon in My Art Room blog has an awesome papier-mache ice cream cone sculpture project using a paper water cone, newspaper, masking tape and art paste.

More resources

My Wayne Thiebaud Powerpoint includes repetition of simple shapes, variety, use of thick paint, horizon line and shadow.

I always show my ancient (circa 2000!) Behind the Scenes with Wayne Thiebaud [VHS] – it includes Mr. Thiebaud drawing an ice cream cone. Oh, why can’t I find a DVD or digital version??

Wayne Thiebaud video from CBS

Whatever project you choose, your students are bound to have fun!

 

Enjoy!

 

Do you have a favorite ice cream cone project?

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