Budding Artists Study Claude Monet and Gutzon Borglum

Now that summer is here, we are taking up our artist-in-training program again.

 

We started with Claude Monet, that French guy who doesn't bother to pronounce the "t" at the end of his name.

Picture from here.

 

Through the magic of library books, we learned that he is an Impressionist.

According to our readings, Impressionism is a style that isn't realistic, but more interested in movement and light.

Picture from here. 

We learned that Impressionism style pictures are best appreciated not by looking closely, but by standing back from them to capture the overall look. 



Picture from here.

 



Now that we are informed, we are prepared to make our own Impressionism art, using paint and tape.



We are using Grandma's patent-pending finger-dabbing method.

We did some specialized color mixing for just the right effect.

Here's the face of a serious artist.

It was actually a little hard to get use to the "unrealistic" style of painting.

So here's Monet's Garden Bridge:



Picture from here.

and here are Hailey's and Makayla's version of Garden Bridge.



Yep. Monet has some real competition. 

Since Monet is French, we created some French cooking masterpieces.

Crepes are now 

 

 Hailey's new favorite food.

Of course, we also had to try French fries,

which we read are French due to the way they are cut, not the way they are cooked. Please don't tell me they're not Greek, either. There was lots of Greece involved.



We moved on to Gutzon Borglum. "Gutzon" is an unusual name for someone born in Idaho. I'm guessing there weren't too many people named Gutzon in his high school graduating class.

Picture from here.

 

He's the Mt. Rushmore creator guy.

 

We made our own Mt Rushmore with homemade playdoh.

Here's Makayla's George. I think his dentures are bothering him today.

Hailey's Roosevelt, complete with monocle and moustache.



Hailey made these two



and grumpy Makayla made these two.

 Personally, I like our Rushmore at least as much as Borglum's.

 

We also made a second depiction

 

rubbing over a quarter, nickel, dime (yes I know that's the wrong Roosevelt. I couldn't find a coin with Teddy), and penny.

If you look closely at Hailey's picture, you'll see Grandpa, Amy, Makayla, Hailey (riding on Grandpa's shoulders), and me (with my camera in hand) visiting Mt Rushmore, which is prophetic because that's where we're headed on Thursday.



See you later!