Mini Masters Project Script

Welcome to the Met Museum

Growing up

·            Born in Paris 1840

·            Grew up in Le Havre since he was 5

·            Father wanted him to be a grocery man like himself

·            Monet became well-known in his town for his caricatures at a young age

Monet's House in Giverny

National Service in Algeria

·            He wanted to experience the exotic culture and intense light

·            Algeria laid foundation for his later experiments in color and development in impressionism

·            Despite being sent there to fight, Monet still had time to sketch

Back to France

·            Continued to study painting

·            1868 Financial problems

·            Almost committed suicide (threw himself into the river Seine)

Franco-Prussian War

·            Moved to London

·            Did a few paintings of parliament, Thames river

·            Formed friendships with other French artists who also influenced his study of art

Discovered Giverny

·            Found Giverny while passing on a train

·            Decided to stay and rented a house

·            When earned enough money, designed his own garden, bought a house

·            Bridge over lily pond painting 1900s

·            His garden inspired him to do many of his paintings

·            At same time, France hosted the Olympics

·            Spent rest of his life in peaceful Giverny

·            Died of lung cancer 1926

And now we have the privilege of having one of Monet’s paintings!

Paintings

·            Drawn from the bridge in his garden

·            Originally planted his garden for the pleasure of it, not for painting

·            I was interested in his choice of colors and how well they blended together

·            A lot of colors are depicted in this particular painting

·            Shows dark shadows by the side, sunlight in the middle

·            Works include “Garden of the Princess”, “Path in the Forest”, “Morning on the Seine”

·            Most of them impressed a calm relaxed feeling

·            His subjects are usually of landscape/family

Impressionism

·            Small, thin, visible brush strokes

·            Emphasis on accurate depiction of light and its changing qualities

·            Unusual visual angles but ordinary subject matter

·            19^th century art movement

·            Term was said to be derived from one of Monet’s paintings, “Sunrise Impression”

Media

·            The texture looks like oil painting

·            Easier to blend

·            Creates the variety of colors he needed

Influences

·            Had a few artist friends/critics

·            A few encouraged him to work with light, others taught him to paint realist

·            Water lilies and Giverny helped him get over his misery during the First World War and deaths of his wives

Conclusion

·            I enjoyed learning about the artist, impressionism

·            Learnt a lot about Monet and his style of art

·            Developed my observation skills while imitating the painting

·            Difficult to reproduce his work

·            Had to focus on small details and make different colors and shades exactly as it was depicted

·            Satisfied with my work but I still think texture and shades of color are still bit different

Warm and Cold Colors



Paul Klee's painting using warm and

cool colors



This project was very interesting, it taught me how colors can bring out a warm or cold feeling in you. First we each took a sharpie and drew shapes and lines without lifting the marker, gradually filling the page. Next, we split the page into one or two big sections by drawing lines through it. I drew a big circle and square in the top left and bottom right corners. Afterwards, we selected warm and cold colored oil-pastels. Sometimes it's difficult to differenciate a color as warm or cold. For example, bright yellow could be warm but also have a cold feeling to it if it had a tinge of lime green. At certain times you'd have to rely on your own conscience and just decide if it's warm or cold. Coloring wasn't so simple. All the shapes and figures within the big circle or square outline had to be colored warm. The rest would be cold colors. You could do it vise versa and have the inside be cold and outside warm. -It's sort of confusing but I got used to it soon after I started coloring.



My finished piece

The most prominent feelings I had while working on this project came through while sensing the different colors for cold or warm. The process was a bit difficult because a few colors could be confusing when you're trying to decide. You have to think to yourself if it's closer to lavender of magenta? Lime yellow or sunny yellow? Working with oil pastels is pretty challenging too. First the material can stick onto your hands easily, making it easy to smudge the paper by accident. Next it's hard to wash off and sometimes you have to wipe it off instead of just using soap and water. -But I still enjoy using oil pastels because it gives a smooth texture to the finished project  and easily blends with different colors.

This piece covers a wide range of elements of art. Color plays a big part in making the overall finished product look good. You also have to have balance. If most of the paper is filled with cold colors, the artwork will not look as nice and would not have a perfect balance. Shapes are also important in the creation of this piece. Letting a wide variety of shapes cover the page makes the piece more interesting.




The skills I learnt through this activity is pretty straight-forward. Once I've mastered this, I was able to differenciate colors around me as warm or cold. When I finished this piece, I observed colors with more detail and in a much closer perspective. After completing this project, your observation skills will definitely increase and your sense of colors in your surroundings.



An artist who played with warm and cool colors as well, is still famous to this day and known as Paul Klee. (Hey, that rhymed, haha :D). Paul Klee realized the interesting effect created by combining a balance of these colors, leading him to succesfully paint numerous masterpieces while having that in mind. The picture posted on the left also demonstrates his amazing talent for using colors and making them equally balanced.



Am I satisfied with my finished product? Yes, I think I tried hard to focus on my work throughout the whole project and finished within the time span we were given to complete it. I enjoy seeing how the colors blend in together from light to dark. I can feel a sense of balance in the picture, not too much of the same color or lines. I think the colors equally balance each other out, so I am perfectly content with my final result.

Green Level Writing~

The Upside-Down Man



Sketch by Picasso



Try looking at this picture upside down then drawing it 2 inches at a time. -That was what we did. It was really difficult at first but we learnt to concentrate on every line and not on what the entire picture would look like in the end. In the end, the drawing wasn't very proportional because I tried to draw what my mind was seeing, instead of drawing what my eyes were seeing. This was a challenging project and I have done it once before. It was interesting how the size and place of the lines can affect the entire picture. The original sketch was created by Pablo Picasso. I wonder why people often tend to draw this picture upside down instead of the right way up. Maybe the complex drawing makes it difficult to draw it when your mind isn't concentrating on the lines. Did Picasso draw it upside down while doing the original?

Drawing Music

Kandinsky's Masterpiece of Music

Drawing music was a very interesting concept for me. First, we took some time to listen to music while visualizing it using lines, shapes and different colors. Then, we did our best to sketch everything our mind saw while listening to the enthusiastic Irish music. Everyone began drawing interesting lines and symbols, knowing that we weren't allowed to draw anything that looked like real objects.

The drawing on the right was created by Kandinsky many decades ago. He listened to the same music we did, while sketching it on paper. It was a brilliant idea and I was glad he was inspired to do it. Who would have thought music can trigger so much colors and shapes without us realizing it?

Painting Trees

Our first step in this project was to sketch a tree. We chose a tree, then drew it using thick and thin lines using black markers. We sketched it again on a larger piece of paper and painted the background first, then the darker leaves, then painted over it using lighter shades of green to show depth.
I learnt that by showing different shades, we could make the tree look more realistic.
During this project, we could only paint with blue, green, black and white. This encouraged us to mix the four primary colors to form lots of other shades and colors ranging from navy green to lime green. We also had to learn how to blend the colors to form the shade of brown, used to color the trunk of the tree.
Artists, botanists and ecologists share a connection to this too. They also need the skill to see small details in plants and learn to notice how the different shades of their leaves differentiate them from each other.
The artist who inspired us to do this was Van Gogh. He also created many paintings of trees and plants, using different shades of green.