3rd Grade 1. Alvaro and Christina by Wyeth

The Artist Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) was a realist painter who captured portraits and scenes of Americana in watercolor and egg tempera. Wyeth is likely the most popular painter of America, although he avoided the limelight. He was the youngest of 5 children, born to a famous book illustrator. He grew up surrounded by people who loved creating art. His dad let him work in his studio without influencing him. He was very talented. At 20 years old, he had his first show in NYC. Until his recent passing in 2009, he lived in Pennsylvania and Maine, sketching and painting familiar sights, old buildings, and his friends.

The Art Andrew liked to paint his friends’ houses, and this one is the Olson’s house - brother and sister, Alvaro and Christina Olson. It was once an inn used by the crews of ships sailing down the coast of Maine. For many years, Christina and her younger brother, Alvaro lived there. Al was once painted by Wyeth, but never wanted to pose for another painting, so Wyeth continued to paint the things that belonged to him – like his blueberry baskets, his barn and his boat. Christina was crippled since childhood (polio). Andrew painted her many times. Just after they died, Wyeth walked through the house and wanted to paint this painting. The painting depicts the 2 doors used by Alvaro and Christina as they passed from the shed to the kitchen. Which items in the painting remind you of Alvaro, and which ones remind you of Christina?

As you look as this painting how do you feel? Do the colors make you feel a certain way? Wyeth was able to sketch and then paint right inside the shed looking closely at every object. He was able to change what he saw in order to achieve balance, or make things more simple. What message was Wyeth trying to give us? What was he able to say about his 2 friends who lived here? Can you see how he used light from a window to spotlight certain things? He contrasted items that he wanted us to notice. He placed bright against dull, curves against straight lines, texture against smooth surfaces…This is a realistic portrait, and yet modern, because of where each object is placed. Do you feel this painting tells you how Wyeth felt about his friends?

Art Project: Drawing relating to someone important to the childArt Materials: paper, pencil, colored pencils or markers

Draw a picture relating to someone who is important to you. While you need not include this person, be sure to include items in your picture that are important to or belong to this person and try to highlight these items with your choice of color.

3rd Grade 2. Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

The Artist Leonardo da Vinci was an artist, scientist, and inventor during the Italian Renaissance. He is considered by many to be one of the most talented and intelligent people of all time. Leonardo was born in the town of Vinci, Italy on April 15, 1452. About the age of 14 he became an apprentice to a famous artist named Verrocchio. This is where he learned about art, drawing, painting and more. In addition to painting, Da Vinci studied science and math. He went to work for the Duke of Milan. There, he created many religious paintings and sculptures. He also designed buildings, churches, bridges and even war machines. He left detailed blueprints for inventions that resemble our modern-day helicopters and army tanks.

The Art The Mona Lisa is quite possibly the most well-known piece of painted artwork in the entire world, and was valued at $100 million in 1962. Taking inflation into consideration, the painting is estimated at about $790 million today. It was painted by the Leonardo Da Vinci, the famous Italian artist, between 1504 and 1519, and is a half body commission for a woman named Lisa Gherardini. Her husband, Francesco Del Giocondo requested the work by Da Vinci just after the turn of the century. It is perhaps the most studied piece of artwork ever known. The Mona Lisa is an oil painting, with a cottonwood panel as the surface. The subject’s facial expression has brought about a source of debate for centuries, as her face remains largely enigmatic in the portrait. Originally commissioned in Italy, it is now at home in the French Republic, and hangs on display in the Louvre in Paris.

Art Project: Modern Mona LisaMaterials Needed: Copies of the Mona Lisa template from art enrichment closet for each student, pencil, crayons or markers

After looking at the details in the renaissance Mona Lisa painting, have the students add to the Mona Lisa template found in the art enrichment supply closet to create their own version of Mona Lisa using modern elements. Tell them to think about what her hair and clothes might look like today. For the background, ask them to think about where she

might be and what she might be doing.

3rd Grade 3. Cloud Gate by Anish Kappor

The Art Chicago’s very own ‘Bean’ at Millennium Park downtown. Officially titled Cloud Gate, ‘The Bean’ is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The sculpture was selected during a design competition in 1999 and was completed in 2006.

The cost of the sculpture was first estimated at $6 million; this escalated to $23 million by the time it was complete. No public funds were involved; all funding came from donations from individuals and corporations.

It is expected to survive for 1,000 years. The lower 6 feet of Cloud Gate is wiped down twice a day by hand with a Windex-like solution. And the entire sculpture is cleaned twice a year with 40 gallons of liquid detergent.

The elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city’s famous skyline and the clouds above. Cloud Gate weighs over 110 tons, and is 66 feet long and 33 feet high. A 12-foot-high arch provides a “gate” to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives. Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66 feet long by 33 feet high.

Anish Kapoor stated, “What I wanted to do in Millennium Park is make something that would engage the Chicago skyline…so that one will see the clouds kind of floating in, with those very tall buildings reflected in the work. And then, since it is the form of a gate, the participant, the viewer, will be able to enter into this very deep chamber that does, in a way, the same thing to one’s reflection as the exterior of the piece is doing to the reflection of the city around.” When standing underneath, the reflections are like those of fun houses.

Art Activities: Two short activities to bring the sculpture concept and creativity alive Art Materials: A sheet of aluminum foil for each student, scissors, paper to sketch a draft of a sculpture.

1) Take a sheet of aluminum foil, cut into strips or use whole sheet. Create a model of a sculpture.

2) Sketch a pop art sculpture on a piece of paper of an everyday item that you use. Where would the sculpture be placed? What would it be made of?

3rd Grade 4. A Girl with a Watering Can by Renoir

The Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in 1841 in Limoges, France. He was the sixth of seven children. His family moved to Paris in 1844, where his father worked as a tailor. As he grew up he sang in the church choir. His voice was so beautiful that his teacher thought he should become an opera singer. As a boy he worked in a porcelain factory where his drawing talents led him to be chosen to draw designs on fine china. In 1860 Renoir became a copyist at the Louvre museum in Paris. For four years he was to copy the works off the master painters which hung in the museum. He learned to paint very quickly. He found work by decorating more that 20 cafes in Paris. However, he lived as a ‘starving artist’, often times not having enough money to buy paint. In 1861 Renoir went to art school under Charles Gleyre, a Swiss teacher who offered practical instruction to a number of artists, and these were the future Impressionist painters Monet, Sisley, Bazille. In 1862 Renoir enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and he was there for a few years. Other artists whom he met around this time were Fantin-Latour, Pissarro, and Cezanne. By 1863, the nucleus of the future Impressionist group was formed.

Impressionism departed radically from existing traditions of European art. These impressionist artists rejected the notion that high art should represent elevated subjects from mythology, history, or religious sources. These avant-garde artists turned their attention to the people, sites, and scenes of their own age in the 1860s and 1870s. The impressionists wanted to capture momentary effects: the flux and movement of modern life, the fleeting properties of light on forms in nature. They devised new techniques of painting to achieve this aim. Their broken brushwork, irregular surfaces, heightened color, and sense of spontaneity gave physical expression to their perceptions of a particular time and place. Their contemporaries regarded the paintings as crude and sketchy. At the first public exhibition of these works, the artists were disparagingly called mere “impressionists” by the conservative art critic Louis Leroy.

In 1869 Renoir and Monet worked together and produced what are usually regarded as the first landscape paintings in which the impressionist style of painting is properly evident. Through the practice of painting light and water en plein air (in the open air), Renoir and Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them, and effect today known as diffuse reflection. The quick brush strokes of different colors kept the colors vibrant and allowed the eye of the person viewing it to ‘mix’ the colors. In the summer of 1873, Renoir went to stay with Monet near Paris on the Seine River. Several pairs of paintings exist in which Renoir and Monet, working side by side, depicted the same scenes.

By the 1880s, the nucleus of Impressionist artists evolved apart, each moving into other modes of painting. Renoir’s early work was typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of

sparkling color and light. But by the mid 1880s, he had started to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure painting, particularly of women. (continued…)

During a trip to Italy in 1881, he was inspired by works of Raphael and other Renaissance masters, to adopt a more classical style. He felt convicted that he was on the wrong path, and for the next several years he painted in a more severe style, in an attempt to return to classicism. He concentrated on his drawing, and emphasized the outlines of figures. After 1890, he returned, from this period onward, to the use of thinly brushed color which dissolved outlines as in his earlier work. In 1890 he married a young lady who had modeled for his work, and they had four children. His son Jean became a notable filmmaker and his other son Pierre became a stage and film actor.

A prolific artist, Renoir painted everyday and made about 6,000 paintings during his 78 years of life. He thought a picture should be “a pleasant thing, joyful and pretty” and his work, timeless and attractive, reflected that philosophy. Renoir was intrigued by the delicate beauty of the female form. Renoir’s paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated color, capturing people in intimate and candid compositions. With freely brushed touches of color, his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings. The warm sensuality of Renoir’s style made his paintings some of the most well-known and frequently reproduced works in the history of art.

The Art A Girl with a Watering Can, 1876, oil on canvas This painting has long been a favorite of visitors to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. -- and it seems that Renoir painted it with exactly this hope, that it would please a large audience. The first impressionist exhibition, in 1874, had brought Renoir and his fellow artists more notoriety than business, and the auction he optimistically organized for his own work the following year was a financial disaster, which he could not afford. He began to paint charming, light-filled scenes with women and children, like this one, in the hopes of increasing sales. He probably thought that the pretty child in her fancy dress might also attract portrait commissions. Although it was landscape that had provided the first, and most important, inspiration for impressionism, Renoir's instinct always led him back to the figure.The deep blue of the dress, the bright red of the bow and the girl's lips, and the cool greens of the lush garden behind her are all given a prismatic brilliance by Renoir's brushwork. Rather than blend his colors, Renoir has applied them in individual touches that dissolve edges and seem to shimmer with light. Notice how Renoir captured the sunlight falling on blonde curls. He felt the skin of the subject, with porcelain skin tone and petite features, should look so supple, that we feel drawn to reach out and pinch it. Impressionism sought to capture the effect of light on the senses, communicating a visual signal with each stroke of the brush.Art Project: Girl with a watering can replicaMaterials needed: White construction paper, tempera paints, sponge brush, paint brush, Q-tipsStudy the landscape of the art piece. Note the lighter colors in the background, vivid colors on the main subject in the center, and bright colors of larger flowers in foreground. Use paint brushes in the center to paint with bright (not blended) color paints. Use sponge brushes to replicate the landscape in the background of the art piece. Use a Q-tip in the front to detail flowers.

3rd Grade 5. Chinese Horse from Paleolithic Period

The Art Prehistoric cave drawings. Used to record life in tribes. This drawing was done 17,000 years ago. Artists were honored members of prehistoric community. There are many limestone caves in the region and there are probably more cave paintings to be discovered.

This ancient horse was called "Chinese" because of its resemblance to 3,000 year old Sung dynasty horse paintings. A pictograph refers to painted (as opposed to carved) representations created by our prehistoric ancestors. The lovely painted horse, represented in our exclusive full size recreation, was found painted on the calcite covered walls deep within the subterranean tunnels at Lascaux (pronounced las-co), France. The artist painted by flickering fire light, using handmade paint consisting of ground pigments combined with animal fat. The paint was applied directly to the wall, or, in some cases, blown through hollow reeds for special effects. The delicate execution of the painting and its remote underground location suggest the artist wanted the work to be protected and survive. It remained hidden until the cave was discovered by children and explored in the 1940s.

Prehistoric paintings in caves are well preserved because it is cool and dark in caves – keeps paintings protected. Artists painted and drew common animals, hunting scenes. Sometimes used bumpy surface of the cave wall to suggest an animal’s form. Made paint from minerals/rocks pounded into powder and mixed with animal grease, honey, blood. Or they could paint the powder directly onto a damp wall (watercolor) Paint onto a rough (sand or dirt) covered cave wall as well. Does the horse look like the horses of today? What do you think the lines and forms around it are?

Art Project: Cave art paintingsMaterials needed: Brown paper, white colored pencil, chalks (in shades of whites, browns, and yellows), plates to use as paint palettes, tempera paints (in black, brown, and red), fine paint brushes, copies of cave art examples

Instructions: First, distress the brown paper. Start by adding some “cracks” by drawing jagged lines with a white colored pencil. Create patches of color with chalks in whites, browns, and yellows by rubbing the colored chalk into the paper with fingers. To make the paper look like a fragment of rock, tear some pieces from the edges. This makes them appear rough.

(continued…)Carefully crumble paper into a ball, and then open carefully to reveal a heavily textured surface with creases and crevices.

Pass out examples of cave art to the students. Give each student cluster a plate of black paint and plate of a mixture of red & brown paint (mix this before giving to students). Using a fine paint brush and the black and/or reddish-brown paint, students can paint their own outlines of animals and human figures. They can copy images from the examples or use their imaginations to draw other creatures.