Friday | snapshot

For our last day in Inspiring Artists, we learned about cubism.  Cubism was an innovative art movement pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.  In Cubism, artists began to look at subjects in new ways in an effort to depict three-dimensions on a flat canvas.  They would break up the subject into many different shapes and then repaint it from different angles.  Our final artist study was Pablo Picasso.  He grew up in Spain where he was born on October 25, 1881.  His father was a painter and art teacher.  Pablo liked to draw from an early age.  Legend has it that his first word was "piz", short for "pencil" in Spanish.  It soon became apparent that Pablo had little interest in school, but was an extremely talented artist.  In 1901, Pablo's close friend died. Pablo became very sad.  Around the same time he began painting in Paris.  For the next four years his paintings were dominated by the color blue.  Many of the subjects were sad and somber looking.  He painted people with elongated features and faces.  click here to see "Old Guitarist " from his blue period Eventually Pablo got over his depression.  He also fell in love with a French model.  He began to use warmer colors in his paintings including pinks, reds, oranges, and beiges.  Art historians call this time in Pablo's life the Rose Period.  He also began to paint happier scenes such as circuses.  In 1907 Picasso began to experiment with a new style of painting.  He worked with another artist named Georges Braque.  By 1909 they had created a completely new style of painting called Cubism.  In Cubism the subjects are analyzed and broken up into different sections.  Then the sections are put back together and painted from different perspectives and angles.  click here to see "Portrait of Daniel Henry Kahnweiler" for our art project, students were asked to bring in pictures of themselves for a Cubism self-portrait project. Here is our step-by-step process: 1. With pen­cil, draw a large oval shape, fill­ing most of the paper. 2. Next draw a curvy line down the mid­dle of your oval, to sim­u­late the shape (fore­head, nose, lips and chin) of a profile-view por­trait. 3. Find the lips and draw a side­ways “V” shape on both sides, with a line through the mid­dle from cor­ner to cor­ner. You are cre­at­ing both a pro­file and front view simul­ta­ne­ously! 4. Now add the eyes and out­line the shapes for the eye­brows above them. Draw only out­lines of shapes — noth­ing filled in yet! 5. Draw a sim­ple “C” or “back­wards C” to indi­cate a nos­tril on the pro­file side of your draw­ing. 6. Add a curved line on both sides of the head for ears and draw the hair as a shape rather than individual lines. 7. Trace over all your pen­cil lines with a “fine” black Sharpie, then erase any pen­cil lines that are still show­ing. 8. Use mark­ers to color each shape, with no two shapes that are next to each other col­ored the same. Use stip­pling, hatch­ing, cross-hatching, and even scrib­bling to fill in your shapes! and as our finale, we took a campus art tour!  it was a little rainy but we still enjoyed looking at the different sculptures we have right here in Livingston! Blue Antoinette Prien Schultze Eliot, Maine This piece is located when entering the campus of Highway 11. The glass portion is now reinforced with a steel bar because it has been removed and stolen twice as personal treasure. Prism Disk Carl Billingsley Ayden, North Carolina located in front of the SUB Steel   Kinetic Rocks Thad Smith located behind Patterson Apts. a series of plastic rocks that will turn when the wind blows another piece located behind Patterson Apts/Caf parking lot Ambulatory Arch Greg Mueller in front of Pruitt Hall Oracle Aaron Hussey located in front of Tutwiler Library bronze and steel Astrea Joe Mooney located beside Bibb Graves Alfred Atlas Opened Glenn Zweygardt Alfred Station, NY located in front of Foust Hall stone, glass, and bronze Birdform II Charles Munoz Cuba, Al located behind Bibb Graves steel another piece located beside Webb Hall Step, Line, Twist Shawn Morin located in front of Brock Hall Human Relations Glenn Zweygardt Alfred Station, NY located in front of Brock Hall stone, glass, and bronze Walking Bobs Barrett DeBusk Fort Worth, Tx located at the Campus School front and on playground powder coated steel Don't forget to come view the MoCA  and see all of our pieces we did during this unit!  Stay tuned for the Space Rangers unit!