Thank you Henri Matisse for helping my little artist create these awesome pieces..."Matisse's Pieces!"
Great book about the life of Henri Matisse inspired my students to "Paint with Scissors". They finished their creations gluing many tiny pieces to their paper...and I really wanted it to have a personal touch...and BAM! The light came on and we added a personal touch of our own hands and using scissors to cut the pieces. LOVE LOVE LOVE these! Great job kindergarten & 1st grade!
Here is my power point I used to help guide:
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/huskeyj72501-1975329-henri-matisse-artist-making-pieces-little/
New York Times:
Outside the Lines - ‘Henri’s Scissors,’ by Jeanette Winter
In “Henri’s Scissors,” Jeanette Winter rushes through the story of Henri Matisse’s childhood, but no worries: it’s his second (far more interesting) childhood that fascinates her. After becoming one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, whose only peer, it could be argued, was the aggressively prolific Picasso, Matisse has grown old. Now infirm and confined to bed, he reflects on his past triumphs in a room colored in the deepest blues and purples. But inspiration strikes, and using a pair of common household scissors as his magic wand, Matisse cuts shapes out of brightly colored paper and transforms his sickroom into a mystical garden full of flowers and birds. Then, in the final and greatest feat of his career as artist-sorcerer, “the rainbow of shapes cradled the old artist and carried him into the heavens.”
Well this one they posted on VINE has gone over the top. The "best of vine" site on facebook has posted it as one of the best ever and they have over 400,000 likes and comments from all of their social media.
In the book Get into ART Animals the author Susie Brooks shows a variety of art works where artist have painted, sketched, created animals. The book gives a little blurb about the piece and a little blurb about the artist. We used the artist and illustrator Edward Bawden who created a fabulous illustration for the fable "Peacock & Magpie". Then we boasted our chest, fanned our feathers and flew into Larry! It was also a great way to compare and contrast ficition and nonfiction because the non fiction piece has a lot of elements to it like a table of contents, glossary, etc.
Later I found this fabulous close up by artist Heather Galler and I fell in love with it. I liked the simplicity of it and thought it would be a great piece for teaching my students how to make OBSERVATIONS and create their own version. They are on their way to tickling my feathers already! More to come!
1st & 2nd have been working on Ancient Greek Vases. We discussed how these vases were discovered by Archaeologist. We learned how to look up ARCHAEOLOGIST in the dictionary and found the definition. We learned about how these vases told stories through pictures and how they were found. They have used symmetry to create their vase, used patterns that repeat to add designs and this week they are doing their cut outs to glue on their vases of a character from a story. I am really pleased with how they are turning out. Hoping to finish them up today. More photos of finished pieces & power point to come.
