Monday, March 10, 2014

Painting A Still Life With Those That Don't Sit Still

Today we tried our hand at painting a still life.  A still life is a work of art (in our case a painting) depicting mostly inanimate objects like food, flowers, books, etc.  It was my job to set up our in-spah-ray-schion (inspiration) piece.  I channeled my inner Paul Cezanne or how I imagine Paul Cezanne speaking and working, to set up the perfect inspiration piece.  This is my fake fruit masterpiece.



Though the children were not as still as the still life, I think their wanderings were a quest for added inspiration.  Everyone really enjoyed having the creative outlet and as a mom it was really enjoyable to see the individuality of interpretation displayed by everyone.

The finished masterpieces.

 ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

Art is very important to our family and it is very easy to incorporate into your home school program. The benefits are far reaching and well documented. While many traditional schools have had to limit or cut their art programs, art can thrive in your home school day.  You can take something small and simple like our project and turn it into a full lesson with minimal cost and effort.  In our venture today we learned the definition of a still life,  the history of still life art, the techniques used when painting with acrylic paint on canvas, the color wheel and the nuances of paint mixing.  Hello psychedelic pink!  We also discovered we have a freakish amount of fake fruit and we even had the opportunity to discuss Paul Cezanne as well as his famous works thanks to my horrible French impersonation.  As you can see, my inspiration piece channeled his famous "Still Life With A Curtain" circa 1895 seen below.  Do you see the similarities?  Well it is a loose interpretation.
 
 
For the project today we bought our supplies from Jo-Ann Fabric using a 40% off one item coupon and our 15% educator discount.  We purchased paint, brushes and canvas for just under $20 with our discounts. Use things around the house for your inspiration or go for a walk and pick flowers or gather rocks. 

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