Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The next Picasso?

Project 2:  The next Picasso...

Pablo Picasso is undoubtedly one of the most famous artists to ever come from Spain.  Sure there were others, Goya, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, but Picasso was the most influential and well-known.

Born in 1881 in Malaga Spain as Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisimo Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, or Pablo for short, he was a prolific artist from a very young age.  According to his mother his first word was "piz" short for lapiz (pencil in Spanish).   He soon became an artist in many different areas - oil painting, sculpture,drawing, and even architecture.  He was one of the first artists to achieve worldwide fame and wealth while he was alive to enjoy it and he inspired many artists with his unique spin on art.

He is credited, along with Georges Braque, with co-founding the Cubist movement in art.  In Cubism, artists "take apart" and analyze objects in terms of the shapes they are made up of.  A branch of Cubism is called Synthetic Cubism and in that art form the artist uses bits of paper or other "real" objects to make compositions.  It was the first use of collage as an art form.  It is something that my kids and I can totally do :)  Maybe...

For the project you will need:
  • Something "inspirational" >
  • Misc. bits of craft paper
  • glue
  • paint and paint brushes
  • scissors
  • willing artists
Tell them they should look at the shapes and colors they see and try to make that on their paper.  My daughter got it, she's 5 and pretty artistic.  My son cut up confetti for awhile and then left :)
But if you check out the final masterpiece I think you'll agree...
NAILED IT !!!
Well, I might be a tad biased.  She had fun, we have lots of confetti, and they sat there and listened while I talked about Cubism and Picasso for 5 minutes straight - so I'm calling it a job well done.
My budding Picassos !!