Inspired by Arcimboldo's vegetable Portraits

You can imagine the comments I heard when students entered the art room and saw THIS on the board.  We made a lot of observations and guesses about this piece. Here are a few:
It's a portrait, it's made of vegetables, it's a painting, it looks like it was painted a long time ago, the ear is an ear of corn, it looks like it is someone specific, there's a lot of detail, it is colorful,  it's funny, the vegetables look real even though the face does not....

The job of a renaissance court portraitist was to produce likenesses of his sovereigns to display at the palace and give to foreign dignitaries or prospective brides. It went without saying the portraits should be flattering. Yet, in 1590, Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted his royal patron, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, as a heap of fruits and vegetables (opposite). With pea pod eyelids and a gourd for a forehead, he looks less like a king than a crudité platter.

Lucky for Arcimboldo, Rudolf had a sense of humor. And he had probably grown accustomed to the artist’s visual wit. Arcimboldo served the Hapsburg family for more than 25 years, creating oddball “composite heads” made of sea creatures, flowers, dinner roasts and other materials. from www.smithsonianmag.com

Click here to play a game inspired by Arcimboldo's faces

Portraits inspired by Sandra Silberzweig

Sandra Silberzweig is a contemporary artist from Toronto. She has a condition called synesthesia, which is a crossing of the senses.  This means that she may "hear" colors or "see" music.

Here is a poem she wrote called "When you are a synesthesia goddess ...... your day dreams are always in color"
I am a synesthesia goddess
I have no fear of color
It lives in my soul, dances in my heart
Spills out of my fingers flowing down a canvas
I can see your aura
Taste the color black
Feel the chill of the green wind
Smell blue butterflies
Hear the yellow rain
Life is never boring when inspiration is always around


Click here to read more about Sandra Silberzweig, the work she has done to share her experience with synesthesia and how she has turned this condition into a driving force for her creative work.


Silberzweig's paintings are bold, colorful and imaginative.  She primarily paints stylized, patterned-filled portraits. 

I worked with the third and fourth grade classes to create an assessment rubric for this lesson. We talked about what qualities artwork would need to get into the "Wowy-Zowy Zone." Students used this rubric to inspire revisions of their work and self-evaluate.  Click here to view this rubric.


Third and fourth grade artists looked at examples of Silberzweig's artwork, then created portraits inspired by her unique style.  We used chalk pastel and oil pastel and focused on choosing warm and cool color combinations and creating patterns.

I'm back!

After a brief stint at Waitsfield School and a lovely February break I am now back at Fayston until the end of the school year.  Mrs. Morse will now be covering my classes at Waitsfield for the rest of the year.  

I returned from maternity leave to find many wonderful lessons completed or in progress.

First and second graders created "Stick-Start Abstract Paintings." They used sticks to print abstract designs in black acrylic, then painted the white space with liquid watercolors. 

 

Third and fourth graders learned about the color wheel and complimentary colors.

They also created Picasso face collages.

Kindergarten artists also learned about Picasso and created Picasso Portraits. 

Click here to learn more about the progression of Picasso's portraits from realistic to abstract.

First and second graders created collages inspired by Jerry Uelsmann.

Fifth and sixth graders learned about Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.  They created buildings in Hundertwasser's architectural style. 

First and second graders painted green paper in different values and textures, then used these to create tree collages.

 

Thank you to the wonderful Kindergarten class for such a warm welcome back and a fabulous Dr. Seuss hat!