Vive Les Roses!

We have just finished learning about the French Revolution in Story of the World 3: Early Modern Times by Susan Wise Bauer.
One of the extra reading suggestions was "The Man who Painted Flowers" by Carolyn Croll.


It looks like a lovely picture book which I would love to purchase at some stage. Carolyn Croll has several of her lovely illustrations on her blog, which is well worth a look at.

I did however come across a very similar sounding book on
trademe. It is called "The Man who Painted Roses, the Story
of Pierre-Joseph Redoute". So I snapped up this book for just $2, thinking it was bound to have some of Redoute's paintings reproduced in it. I was a little disappointed when I received it as there were no pictures, other than on the front cover. What I did discover however, was a wonderful story of Redoute's life.


Redoute was born about 30 years before the French Revolution, into a family of painters in Belgium. His father longed for he and his brothers to grow up to be famous landscape or portrait painters. They were encouraged to leave the family home at the age of 13, and travel the country learning from master painters, earning their bed and board by assisting the master painters and by painting the odd potrait or religious painting for the local people.


Redoute learned much from this experience, but he never really wanted to paint portraits, he love flowers! He was constantly distracted by their beauty and began to sketch every flower he could along the way.

Eventually Redoute married and settled in Paris. Pierre-Joseph and his wife, Marie-Marthe, had two daughters, Josephine and Adelaide. Through the help of his older brother, Antoine-Ferdinand, and the contacts of various well-known French botanists, Redoute went on to be the official painter for Queen Marie-Antoinette, the Empress Josephine (first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte), the Empress Marie-Louise (second wife of Napoleon) and Queen Marie Amelie. If you can keep up with all the Maries, Louises and Josephines in the story, you are doing well!

Redoute published many botanical books on roses, lilies and many other flowers of the world. He lived a full life and died at the age of 81.

I learned more French history in this book than I have ever known!

Watercolour Sunflowers

These are the results of our watercolour lesson yesterday. We had a look at some of Vincent van Gogh's sunflowers and followed this lesson plan at Making Art Fun.

Vermeer and Haydn Mini Unit

My planning for our 2011 school year is well underway. I hope to share some more detailed plans soon, but for now, here is our Artist & Composer plans for this term:

I will be doing Barb(Harmony Art Mom)' s Mini Unit on Johannes Vermeer and Joseph Haydn with the girls this term.


Click on the picture to check out this great "mini" unit. Barb calls it mini, but I think it's a bit more than that :-).

Paul Klee Picture Study

Dream City, Paul Klee, 1921, Water & Oil.

Before starting our art classes using the book Discovering Great Artists, I was dubious about much of what we call "modern art". However, I have come to appreciate much of the art we have been looking at, mainly for the art itself. I don't want to delve too deeply into the hidden meanings of the pieces, or into the artist's lives themselves, I am simply trying to enjoy the art for itself. In the case of Mondrian and Matisse, I have enjoyed their work and see it as more in the category of "design." I'm not sure if these waffly thoughts are making much sense to anyone - but basically, we have enjoyed having a go at replicating these artists' paintings or just using them as inspiration to have a go ourselves. We are also enjoying recognising Mondrian designs everywhere we go! Even my brother's new business cards are based on a Mondrian design!

Farbtafel, Paul Klee, 1930.

A couple of weeks ago we looked at the work of Paul Klee. As with a lot of artists, apart from Geninne Zlatkis's water colour inspired by Klee I had never heard of him before.

Paul Klee was a Swiss painter, of German nationality. His father was a music teacher, and his mother, a trained singer. Klee loved dabbling in the visual arts as a teenager and spent a lot of time drawing in his school books. He especially loved caricature. He earned a Fine Arts degree after which he travelled throughout Italy, studying the master painters and spending time with fellow contemporary artists, such as Kandinsky.

Rose Garden, Paul Klee, 1920.

Paul served with the German forces during World War 2, but with the intervention of his father, was kept from the front line. He ended up painting camouflage on war aircraft! He continued to paint and hold exhibitions during the war, and eventually settled in Switzerland.

Red Balloon, Paul Klee, 1922.

Klee struggled with colour, and many of his earlier paintings were black & white. This "long struggle with colour" was eventually overcome and Klee managed to produce over 9000 works. In his best year, 1939, he produced over 1200 works.

The painting below, Ad Parnassum (1932) is considered Klee's masterpiece and the best example of his pointillist style. I love it, it reminds me of a fine mosaic.

Ad Parnassum, Paul Klee, 1932.

The painting below is the one we based our art lesson on, although some of the girls chose to use ideas from some of his others. As with many of Klee's paintings, this one is based on building blocks. Doesn't it just remind you of those coloured wooden blocks you played with as a child? Klee also often added a sun to his paintings.

Castle and Sun, Paul Klee, date unknown.

Thanks to Kathy Barbro, of Art Projects for Kids for the idea for our lesson plan.

We had the girls use a set of plastic shapes to trace around and either "build" a castle or some other geometrical design. We traced over the lines with a dark coloured oil pastel or crayon, and then filled in the shapes with pastel or watercolour pencils. Here are the results:

Castle by one little friend, age 5.

Castle by another little friend, age 7.

The Landscape of Holland, Ainsley (7), 2009.

Shape City, Emily (9), 2009.

Block Castle, Bethany (11), 2009.

And to top off our last art afternoon for the year, we made these little "gingerbread houses" for afternoon tea:

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Matisse-inspired Collage Art

This week in our art class, based on Discovering Great Artists, we studied Matisse.

Henri Matisse was born in France in 1869.

Matisse is regarded as the father of the Fauvist movement. His earlier paintings were in the Post-Impressionist style - still recognisable figures, but using strong, bright colours. His style was considered quite shocking for the times.

The Rumanian Blouse, 1940.

When Matisse was diagnosed with cancer in 1941, leaving him wheelchair-bound, he started to experiment with paper cut-outs and collages. This is what we based our artwork on.

Matisse designed this stained glass window for the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence.

It is called the "Tree of Life"

This collage is called "The Beasts of the Sea":

This collage reminded us of sea-weed or a bush.

And apparently, you can't study Matisse without studying this paper collage:

See if you can find the animal depicted!

If you guessed a snail, you're right! If not, I can't blame you!

These are our collages inspired by Matisse.

Check out Kathy Barbro's great site, Art Projects for Kids, for some great art lesson ideas and a Mini Abstract Mural set. This set contains a PDF file of three different abstract murals, inspired by famous abstract artists. I used a page from the Marisse mini mural for a colouring page in the bottom centre of the photo above (I haven't finished yet!).

Barb (Harmony Art Mom) also has a great entry on studying Matisse here, including links to activities and a biography of Matisse.

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