Rothko

Mark Rothko
1903-1970
Born in Latvia!  My parents are from Latvia so I get very excited when I hear about any fellow Latvians making contributions to the world!

Rothko went to Yale University thinking he wold become an engineer or attorney.  He eventually moved to NYC and began taking art classes.  He fell in love with painting.
He thought simple shapes were the best for showing feelings.  The large scale of his paintings are intended to pull you in and make you FEEL the color and emotion that is in front of you.  He wanted you to stand real close to them and be consumed by the feelings.

He said "...You paint a larger picture, you are in it."

What feelings do you think this student artist was having?

Magritte's Eye

Rene Magritte
(1898-1967)
Belgian

Magritte believed that all things are mysterious.  He took the ordinary and made them not-so-ordinary.  His paintings were unusual and sometimes strange.  He loved to paint right after having a bizarre dream! 


We had a blast sharing stories of some of the weird dreams we have had while we worked on this project.

Inspired by "The False Mirror", painted in 1928, this lesson was taken from Art Projects for Kids blog.

Here are our results!

POP ART with Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol
(1928-1987)

Warhol was an American painter, printmaker and filmmaker.  He was a key figure in the POP Art movement which began in the 1950's.  POP Art explores themes and ideas from popular culture. 

Warhol created many of his pieces using a silkscreen process.  This project is an adaptation of that process inspired by his images of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Jackie O. 

BEFOREHAND - take a digital photo of each child.  Using Photoshop or any other similar software turn the photo Grayscale and then increase the contrast making the image purely black and white, no grays.

Materials:
- 8 copies of a black and white photo of each child (on plain copy paper is fine)
- Watercolor paints
- Gluesticks
- 16x20 Black contruction paper
- Examples of Andy Warhol's paintings

Directions:
1.  Each child will get all 8 copies of a photo of themselves that they will paint with watercolor.  Emphasize that each one should be different, altering the colors and/or color placement.  Refer to the examples of Warhol's paintings.
2.  Glue each image next to one another into a grid like pattern (4 on the top, 4 on the bottom) onto the big black construction paper.