Seeing stars

Yesterday, Monday, was Art time.  Another one of my New Year's Intentions is to increase the amount of time we spend on art.  Considering in the past two years we were averaging 1, maybe 2 art projects a year... anything will be an improvement. 

A long, long time ago I purchased one single unit of Meet The Masters from Rainbow Resource.  I think it was something like $27 at the time.  I got the very first one, 'Track A', Ages 5-7.  The entire program consists of Tracks A, B and C - with 3 units (7 artists and techniques are profiled in each unit) each, so there are 9 units all together.  If you purchased all nine, you're talking about a $300 commitment.  So I just bought the first one to see what it was like.  Homeschool Buyer's Co-op does feature a deal from Meet the Masters every once in awhile.

I really do like it.  It only took us about a year to complete the very first project.  I really am lame when it comes to art, and I have no idea why.  I love doing art.  I don't mind the mess.  I am just the queen of getting side-tracked by all the other things that come up in life...

The first project that took us so long to complete was Van Gogh's The Starry Night.  This really is one of my all-time favorite paintings.  We watched the online presentation about Van Gogh and his life as an artist, that comes as part of the curriculum.  We learned about texture and practiced making drawings using different kinds of texture.  The we practiced making spirals and concentric circles.  Finally, we were ready to make our own versions of The Starry Night, using oil pastels on black construction paper.

Here are the final results:

Rylan

Jordan

Mine



I have found that sitting at the kitchen table during a sunny afternoon, with soft music playing in the background (yes, we listened to Don McLean's Vincent... several times over!) and painting/drawing/sculpting with the kids to be one of the most pleasant and therapeutic activities in recent memory.  We will be doing this much more often - it was just so "nice".

I found that as I was listening to the music, I was transported back in time to my high school Humanities Class.  I can remembering picking apart the lyrics of Vincent as part of our studies of Van Gogh.  I also tried to recall art classes during my school years.  I can't remember a thing!   I remember my elementary art teacher's name, I can recall sitting at an art table in Jr. High drawing with pencils, and making Raku pots in Humanities in high school.  That's it.  That's sad!!  I am so thankful that the Meet the Masters program gives some detailed instructions about what we are to do - I could not do this otherwise!

We did learn some interesting facts about Vincent Van Gogh. 

* He was interested in art all of his life, but he only painted during the last ten years.
* Van Gogh produced around 2100 works of art during those ten years.
* Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime - The Red Vinyard, for about $80
* Self-Portrait Without Beard is one of the most expensive paintings sold in all time - it sold for $71.5 million in 1998.

We also went on a virtual field trip to 'see' The Starry Night, where it hangs on a 5th floor gallery wall, at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC through The Google Art Project.  This link will take to you to the exact painting, and will allow you to zoom in so close you can see actual brush strokes, the weave of the canvas and small cracks in the paint.  At the top left of the page, you see two drop boxes - one that indicates you are looking at The Starry Night painting, and the other indicates that you are currently in MoMA.  Click on the MoMA box, and you will 'back out of the painting' and will once again be standing in the gallery.  Now you can move about the entire gallery and look at other pieces of artwork.  You can click on other paintings, and learn all about the artist that made them.  We explored MoMA for a good thirty minutes. Jordan also figured out that you could exit the museum (through the entry/exit doors) and then look around on the city streets outside the museum.  When I was showing Dean the site last night, we left the museum and then actually got lost on the streets of NYC.  Even if we left the page and came back, if we clicked on MoMA, we were still sitting at the same intersection as before.  We had to look up the address of MoMA and read the street signs to navigate our way back.  It was funny, weird and exasperating all at the same time.

So, if you have some time to spare, explore the museum - it's fascinating!  And then, go and explore the several other museums around the world that are a part of the Google Art Project.  Wouldn't it be wonderful if they had the Louvre?