Huh?

Art that makes you say, "huh?"
That's what Wassily Kandinsky was all about.

I mean, what do you think of when you look at this?
I see a dangling, dancing spider; a badger with a kite tail and a little yellow beetle with a paint palette--I've had to personify everything in order to make sense of it.

One of my students likes to say that everything looks like cheese.
In this one, he's probably correct.

Wassily Kandinsky's art may raise eyebrows, but he had an excellent understanding of form.
They even made him a professor. He wrote books and gave hundreds of lectures on the elements of design, the stuff we've been studying for the last few months.
So really, what can we dare to say?

The forms we created today were a little more recognizable.
Lizards,
Snakes
and Turtles.

And a nice wild--excuse me--abstract background of shape, line and color for them to live in.

A pail of purple paint

A pail of purple paint.

Some wadded up butcher paper.

A shiny, metallic marker.

Some inspiration

from Paul Klee.

And behold: we have art.

(Hint on watching the video: Choose "autoplay" after it's fully loaded, under "More" on the far right.)

Color and madness turned happy

Did you know the color brown is associated with humility?

Did you know VanGogh drank himself to death?
Actually, there are a number of theories on what drove him over the edge. And by "edge", I'm talking about a serious drop-off into the deep end--I mean, who cuts off his own ear and then paints a picture of himself all bandaged up?
But did you know he was also a preacher for a time? And maybe the lack of care for the poor around him, for whom he was so compassionate, is what drove him mad.
Or maybe it was the paint he wouldn't stop eating.

Theories, all of them.

And color theory is what we talked about today. VanGogh was a color genius.

Today I avoided telling children that VanGogh was a drunken kook, and we focused on the product of his pain--beautiful paintings.

Pain inspires art.
Beauty inspires art.
And for us today: art inspires art.

This is some of what VanGogh's still life paintings of flowers in vases inspired in my students...

...flowers with smiles...
...vases with faces...
...analogous color schemes...
...and even a triadic harmony.

I may have gone a little deeper into the fascinating topic of color theory than I intended for my young audience--but, hey, it's really interesting stuff!
And I think they got it. It showed up in their work, anyway.

I love it when they leave saying to each other, "That was fun."

And to me: "Thanks! Thanks for teaching us, it was fun."
Thing is, they really mean it.

Art inspires happiness, too.

Inspired by Matisse

I was studying up on the artist Matisse this week.
Lying in bed for long stretches of time changed his life.
Twice.

The first time was when as a lawyer he had appendicitis. Stuck in bed for a year (sheesh! what a recovery period) his mother gave him some paints to help pass the time.
Lo and behold, turns out he was pretty good at it.
So he left the law profession behind and took up art.

Then again, after surgery later in life, he could no longer stand at an easel. Instead he developed a technique he called "painting with scissors". He cut out shapes and was a master at putting them together to achieve balance, contrast and movement on a two dimensional surface.
He was pretty good with a scissors, too.

Matisse has inspired me to get back to painting that wall in the guest room I never finished.
Maybe.
:)

The discipline of art

It takes discipline to make anything beautiful.
Whether it's a sculpture or a painting, toenails (ha ha) or an apartment.
Even our relationships take discipline and practice to become beautiful.
Welcome to today's art lesson.
Life lesson.

We talked about Michelangelo this time. And the amount of discipline and focus he had to have in order to become the famous household name he is today.
If he hadn't drawn hundreds of practice drawing before painting his famous Cistine chapel ceiling, or sculpting the Pieta, we probably wouldn't know who he is.

So we practiced our drawing today.

And drawing, I must say, is way less messy than painting. :)
Actually, though, Michelangelo was probably really messy.

Anyhow, these days none of that mess remains. Only the final outcome of the mess and the discipline.

Such as the Pieta.
Ah the Pieta--to make something that beautiful, you've got to be disciplined.

Art is happening

There is art happening in my house.
How cool is that?

Eight young friends came over today, we chatted about Mondrian (famous for his reductionist works) and the elements of design--namely line. And then everyone created their own masterpiece.
All very unique.

I must say, though, the lesson seemed a lot like "how to make a mess".
:)
But that just means creativeness is happening, right?

Henna in the heat

My friend and former student Jessie is visiting India. One of the things she wanted to do while here was have her hand henna-ed.
The man who did her hand had some of the most detailed design work I've ever seen for "street" henna. And it didn't smudge or run either.
But all that quality work took a long time.
Poor girl had to sit out in the heat for an hour.

Funny things said to me this week by little boys

As I was leaving the house after school, six year old Daniel offered to shake my hand. Then he said to me: "Your hands are thin and cold."
"Uh, yes. You're right." It was an accurate observation.
"My hands are small," he added, "But they are not cold."
It was a new revelation for him. I think he would be disappointed to know it's not the first time I've been told something similar.

I was reading to Daniel and his brother Johannes when their dad came in the room to do something. Johannes wanted to get up and say something to his dad so I paused in the story to wait for him.
When he was done talking he came back to the couch and said, "Okay, push play," as if I was the tv, or something.
Funny.

Earthquake proof

One of the shelters designed for temporary housing and earthquake relief is set up in the yard of the "office" building. If you wanted proof that the shelters can stand up to the shaking of an earthquake, here are four of them in action.

Chinese jumprope

We studied about China this week.

So we colored our pictures of the Great Wall, learned to say "Shi Huang Ti", and went outside to play chinese jumprope.

The egg olympics

Today we held the Egg Olympics.

There were exciting competitions in the egg dive, chariot races, and the egg roll.

We began with a parade around the "athletic field" and ended by crowning the champions with wreaths of laurel...okay, it was just grass.

The early morning elf

This is the elf.

This is what the elf did:

He woke up at 6am. Lonely, as the only one awake in the house, he decided his hair needed trimming. Then he decided it was time for me to get up, so he yelled and banged on the door until I came out and looked at him.

Then, this is what the elf said to me very quietly: "I tried really hard not to wake up my brother."

Right.

That's fantastic.

Camoflauge

Here's what they look like:

Now, can you find them?

What we do

This is how I've been spending a lot of my time:

Taking pictures

Playing cards.

Playing with new friends.

Playing legos.

We go to the playground.

And just hang around.

Cracked head

Daniel was tree climbing. It wasn't a very strong tree and the branch broke. He fell about eight feet to the concrete below. He was taken to the hospital where he got 10 stitches for the two different cuts on his head. Poor kid.
He has said that he learned an important lesson about consequences.

This is a picture of him with his cracked head and the puddle of
blood.


And this is a video of Daniel himself pointing out the site of The Incident.