Modigliani Portraits

In Dynamic Drawing we explored the life and art of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920).  Modigliani is a painter most widely known for his portraits that featured elongated forms.  Often the faces, particularly the noses and necks, of his subjects were longer than normal.  Other features like eyes and lips were stylized or exaggerated.  Below are two examples of his portraiture.





First:  students used rulers to grid off a 12"x 18" black sheet of construction paper.  It was divided into 16- 4.5"x 3" squares.  This is not as hard as it sounds, just half the paper in both directions to start and the rest is cake!

Second:  Draw the self portrait--this grid allowed students to place the face, eyes, nose, and neck in a way that would allow for an elogated portrait style. The head takes up the top half and the neck and shoulders fill the bottom.  Emphasis was placed on creating facial symmetry, and longer noses.

Third:  Portraits were colored heavily in oil pastels and black pastel was used to outline. I found that adding white under flesh toned pastel makes them glow more.  These turned out fabulous!

Hailey

Heather W.

Adam

Grace

Gaia

Kenna

Maggie

Natalie

Miss Vanessa

Aubree

Jasmine

Mary

Ryley

Tarah

In the Small, Small Pond

In Art Through Children's Literature we explored pond life by reading In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming. In this vibrantly illustrated Caldecott Award Winner, we looked closely at the pictures to learn about all the different animals that live in and around ponds. This book travels through the seasons, and explains where animals go in the winter.  Each illustration features sounds that animals make such as splashing fish and wiggling tadpoles,  so it's a really fun book to read!

This project was fun, easy and only took one class!

Supplies:

11"x 15" Watercolor Paper

Oil Pastels
Watercolors

• After reading, each student picked an animal (or a few) that lived in or near a pond to draw using oil pastels on watercolor paper. 
• They were encouraged to add a pond habitat that included water, greenery, and a sky for their animals to live in. 
• We finished these pond paintings by adding watercolors to the water, sky, and land.

       








                          Gaia

                    
           


                            

                           Meredith

             

                            

                       Jake

                                        Eddie

              
                               Luke

                              Chloe

            William

                
                

                                Aidan

                   Megan

                               Yula

Miss Vanessa