Topic, chosen by Ayaan:
How the great artists made their work
This was an interesting choice and first we looked at work by 3 of the most famous artists.
We saw drawings of rocks, mountains, storms, invented machines and the human body by the famous Italian Leonardo da Vinci, 2 self-portraits by the Dutch Van Gogh, 3 portraits by the Spanish Pablo Picasso. All those artists seemed to be obsessed. They worked most of the time and even Van Gogh, who was only 37 when he died, produced over 800 paintings. The other two had long lives and were very observant and curious and were always trying out new things.
Then we saw a textile design called Golden Harvest, (made in 1959) by the Caribbean Althea McNish, and a brush-drawing by the Japanese Toko Shinoda (we could see her standing up, drawing with a long-handled brush on a big sheet of paper on the floor).
But we started by looking at a photograph of Victor Pasmore working, (because we had seen some paintings by him last time). In the photo he was on the floor looking very small sitting in the middle of his big painting. He was painting the lines. It was going to be a big mural. An artist can work in all sorts of ways: standing up, lying down, sitting in a tree.
How the great artists made their work
This was an interesting choice and first we looked at work by 3 of the most famous artists.
We saw drawings of rocks, mountains, storms, invented machines and the human body by the famous Italian Leonardo da Vinci, 2 self-portraits by the Dutch Van Gogh, 3 portraits by the Spanish Pablo Picasso. All those artists seemed to be obsessed. They worked most of the time and even Van Gogh, who was only 37 when he died, produced over 800 paintings. The other two had long lives and were very observant and curious and were always trying out new things.
Then we saw a textile design called Golden Harvest, (made in 1959) by the Caribbean Althea McNish, and a brush-drawing by the Japanese Toko Shinoda (we could see her standing up, drawing with a long-handled brush on a big sheet of paper on the floor).
But we started by looking at a photograph of Victor Pasmore working, (because we had seen some paintings by him last time). In the photo he was on the floor looking very small sitting in the middle of his big painting. He was painting the lines. It was going to be a big mural. An artist can work in all sorts of ways: standing up, lying down, sitting in a tree.
| Portrait of Olga, Picasso  Althea McNish, Golden Harvest textile design   | Self-portrait with bandaged ear, Van Gogh  Toko Shinoda, painting standing up  Althea McNish, in her studio |