Skip to main content

Meeting the Masters: Picasso Hands-on & Reading List

This is our fourth unit with Meet the Masters, but we ended up skipping the last one, for Mondrian, because it was too similar to the first Mondrian exercise we did.  I mean, basically, it was lines and colours and I substituted a hands-on primary-colours lesson instead.

imageI didn’t do the project ahead of time, so I was kind of winging it, which turned out okay, though it took a few minutes at the beginning to get organized.

This project started out by having us copy a simple line drawing of a guitar and drum (at the higher age/skill levels, it’s a guitar and a clarinet).  The trick is, you turn the picture UPSIDE-DOWN to copy it, so (as the explanation goes), you’re not using your LEFT brain at all – it also suggests you try not to talk, and just copy the shapes as you see them.  Naomi drew her drum rightside-up by accident (because she wasn’t copying; just drew it the way she thought it “ought” to be), but that was okay, as you’ll see.

DSC01777The next step, and this was pretty upsetting for her after she’d worked hard on the drawing (note to other parents or teachers using MTM:  warn kids ahead of time that they WILL have to cut up their drawing!).  Eventually, she agreed, and we cut our drawings on the fold lines and pasted them into a pleasing arrangement on the “frame” construction paper.  (she picked orange; mine is purple)

DSC01776DSC01781

The colouring stage comes last, and uses a “staining technique” where you rub the chalk pastels vigourously onto a palette, then use a piece of tissue (we used toilet paper) to rub the colour onto the picture.  That gives it a smooth, almost “airbrushy” kind of look.  I had never heard of this before.  What a great technique!

DSC01783

Here’s our finished artwork!

 DSC01785 DSC01786  DSC01788 

I like how they even give you printable tags to paste on the back of your artwork, so you remember what artist you were studying and what techniques you were supposed to be practicing during the project.  It’s a little thing, but it makes me happy.

DSC01787

Naomi Rivka never wants to quit after an art project – she’s usually too inspired and revved up.  After we were done this Picasso project, she decided to use the leftover colours on her “palette” to create her very own mini-Mondrian artwork.  She cut out squares of colour and balanced them the way we learned in the Meet the Masters unit.  She used a ruler to draw lines as perfectly straight as she could.

 DSC01791 DSC01793

Proudly showing off her original artwork!

I think I’m so proud of this program because here we are on our FOURTH artist and I’m actually doing it – following through, teaching the kids, expanding my own mind.  The kids don’t think this is anything special, but that’s only because they don’t realize what an art ignoramus I am.

On the Picasso bookshelf from the library this weekend…

(Note:  the Ernest Raboff “Art for Children” book shown is Matisse, but we are really reading the Picasso one.  Amazon wouldn’t let me add it, presumably because it’s out of stock, but it’s worth searching to find an inexpensive used copy of any of these Raboff books)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You,...

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful....

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused o...