The world treasures Sir Winston Churchill as a soldier, statesman, orator, author and Prime Minister to the King of England and his daughter who now sits on the throne as the longest serving monarch the world has ever known. But do you know about the famous artist Winston Churchill?
“Just to paint is great fun. The colors are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing.”
– Winston Churchill
Learn About Artist And Prime Minister Winston Churchill
This YouTube video version of Nana’s Podcast is a great introduction to Winston Churchill.
In his later years in retirement, he described his paintings as “duels” with intimidating canvases as a battle of wills, which could finally be won with a display of forceful, brilliant colors…and said, with a sigh, “I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor brown colors.”
Step Into History With The Art Of Winston Churchill
Step into history with us as we see how a great British statesman found a source of delight and a relief from the stress of his career. He proudly painted in oils and pastel chalks, producing over 550 paintings, helping him to hone his powers of observation, memory and visual acuity.
Additional Resources For Studying Famous Artist Winston Churchill
Enjoy painting Sir Winston Churchill after listening to Nana’s podcast!
Don’t miss this fabulous Great Britain Themed Art which includes Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II, Big Ben, a map of the British Isles, WWII helmet and more!
Nana is passionate about helping you realize you ARE an artist! Not only an artist with chalk pastels but with homeschooling, creative spaces, favorite family recipes and more. Nana also enjoys chatting – especially about art. If you have followed along with any of her You ARE an Artist video art lessons, you know that. She also enjoys sharing photos and thoughts on topics while she is being creative in her studio space on her back porch. That is where she will be chatting with you – from her back porch. It’s Nana’s You ARE an Artist Podcast!
-Special thanks to Erin Vincent and her artists for the beautiful photos.Be sure to visit her at Nourishing My Scholar.
Homeschool Fine Arts Curriculum for YOU! We are so excited to announce that You ARE an ARTiST is offering a line of graded art and music appreciation curriculum for families. And don’t miss the announcement about homeschool nature study with the Outdoor Hour Challenges, below!
Grades 1 and 6 plus a Van Gogh and Handel family-style unit study are already available for you. These will be a beautiful part of your homeschool plans. And there will be some really, really great things to look forward to.
You ARE an ARTiST Homeschool Fine Arts Graded Curriculum
How did this all come about? I have a dear, wonderful and talented friend in Barbara McCoy. Barb mentored me early in our homeschool days with practical advice. Barb was also the friend that encouraged me to share Nana’s art lessons with families in ebook form! She has been instrumental in encouraging our family in so very many ways. More than she knows!
When I learned that my friend, Barb, would be retiring and stepping away from both her Harmony Fine Arts curriculum and The Handbook of Nature Study, I knew that these wonderful resources needed to continue to be accessible to other families. Both her fine arts curriculum and her nature studies have been so important in our own homeschool. It is my passion to continue what Barb began in encouraging fellow homeschool families and sharing a love fine arts and the joy of getting outside and enjoying nature.
Homeschool Art Appreciation, Music Appreciation AND Nature Study!
Barb developed a series of fine arts curriculum to meet the needs of her own four children. She then offered those plans to other families. That is also how You ARE an ARTiST began! Nana first shared her art lessons with my children around our kitchen table. Then, we started sharing those art lessons with you.
I got to meet Barb in person at a homeschool retreat! Don’t tell anyone that we skipped one of the sessions so we could go do some Florida nature study. We saw SO many amazing shore birds!
Homeschool Nature Study Membership – Outdoor Hour Challenges
On the nature study side, my family fell and in love with the Handbook of Nature Study and the accompanying Outdoor Hour Challenges early in our homeschooling. The simplicity and ease of the weekly outdoor hour challenges brought joy to our homeschool (my review) and opened our eyes to the world right out our own back door! You can take a look at a Winter Bird Study we enjoyed as a family several years ago.
That means in addition to Nana’s art lessons, we will also offer you art appreciation, music appreciation AND nature study!
FAQs Homeschool Fine Arts Questions
You can take a peek at the fine arts curriculum HERE.
An overview of the entire fine arts series for grades 1-12 can be found HERE.
There is a family style Van Gogh and Handel Unit Study available for purchase HERE.
Homeschool Fine Arts Grade 1 and Grade 6 are also available and are perfect family style – especially for families brand new to art and music appreciation.
Our members receive the Van Gogh and Handel Unit Study AND a deep discount on the new line of curriculum. It is a great time to join Nana in the You ARE an ARTiST Complete Clubhouse and enjoy all the benefits of membership!
We are NOW ACCEPTING our first members for Homeschool Nature Study membership, HERE.
I am so very thankful for my friend, Barb. She offers so very much to homeschool families like mine and yours! It is truly an honor to be able to continue to share her passions for art and music appreciation and nature study.
Please be patient with us during this transition time. We are working diligently behind the scenes to offer you these amazing resources! We can’t wait to share it all with you!
Want to be the first to find out when each Homeschool Fine Arts title will be released? Be sure to join our mailing list at the bottom of our website – just under the Art For All Ages Since 2010! banner.
Growing a love of art at You ARE an ARTiST is a multi-generational passion! Tricia is Nana’s daughter and a mama of five children. Nana shared her first chalk pastel art lessons with her grandchildren around Tricia’s kitchen table. Homeschooling since 2000, Tricia has seen the fruits of home education with three homeschool grads so far!She shares the art and heart of homeschooling at Hodgepodge and is author of the book, Help! I’m Homeschooling! She and her husband, Steve, are also owners of The Curriculum Choice.
With Nana’s video art lesson and other resources, your kids will love learning about Hokusai’s The Great Wave!
Hokusai was born in Honjo, east of the city of Edo (now Tokyo), Japan. He is widely considered one of Japan’s greatest and most prolific artists due to his outstanding paintings and woodblock print. His Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji is his most famous work of art.
The Great Wave is an image carved into a block of wood and then printed onto paper. The wave is not thought to be a tsunami, but an okinami rogue wave bearing down on three oshiokuri-bune – fast boats. Mount Fuji, with its snowy peak, can be seen in the distance.
Famous Artist Katsushika Hokusai Homeschool Study
One of the books we chose to help us study Hokusai was the DK Artists: Lives and Works. This is a gorgeous art history reference book that covers over 80 famous artists and their lives. DK Artists: Lives and Works is a book that your kids will return to throughout their art education!
Did you know Claude Monet was captivated with Hokusai’s art and owned 23 of his prints?
Hokusai The Great Wave Art Lesson for Your Homeschool
Nana brings Hokusai’s art right into your home with her Famous Artists online art course! With a simple set of chalk pastels and a sheet of construction paper, Nana will show you and your children step-by-step how to create your own Great Wave.
Additional Resources for Studying Famous Artists in Your Homeschool
Nana’s Hokusai art lesson is a part of the Famous Artists Series. The You ARE An Artist Clubhouse Membership offers 47 famous artists video lessons for your homeschool including:
Vermeer
Michelangelo
da Vinci
Warhol
Monet
Rockwell
Rembrandt
Lichtenstein
Audubon
Beatrix Potter
… and a new one added about once a month!
The Famous Artists series is exclusive to the You ARE an Artist Complete Clubhouse. There is so much to learn about art and art history! You don’t want to miss out on all the famous artist goodness.
Erin is a writer, blogger, and homeschooler to two intense kids. Her blog is filled with information to help you explore a child led education while making meaningful connections with your children. Discover favorite read alouds, seasonal books, games, art projects, hands-on activities, and learn to just breathe through the ups and downs of life. She loves nature, farm life, good books, knitting, new pens, and hot coffee. Erin is a contributing writer for Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Her work has also been featured on Simple Homeschool and Book Shark.
If there is one thing the pandemic taught us, it’s that you don’t necessarily need to leave your home to have access to things. There are so many resources you can use to enrich your homeschooling, right online! Virtual Art Museum Field Trips are one of those things!
Why Virtual Field Trips Are So Valuable
Besides the fact we already mentioned, you don’t have to leave your home. There are some other great reasons why virtual field trips are so valuable to homeschoolers.
Easier on mom – As a homeschooling mom it can be taxing to organize outings for and with all your children. And stressful to navigate public places with, especially ones where they may need to be quiet and orderly!
Cost effective – No gas used, no museum tickets to purchase, no lunches to buy while you are out.
Vastly increased field trip options – With virtual field trip you have access to museums around the globe, not just in your local area or where you can travel to easily.
You are not limited by ages – I used to have a hard time taking my older children to things because I always had to have the little in tow.
Virtual Art Museum Field Trips To Take In Your Homeschool
I have to say, as I did research for this topic I was truly astounded at the amount of virtual art museum field trip resources there are!
Two HUGE “Catch All’ Sites For Virtual Field Trips
I feel as though these two sites I am going to mention need a special place here in this list. Why? Because each one houses SO MANY museums and art works right in one place. So if you are looking for a place to start, I suggest one of these sites.
Google Arts & Culture Art Expeditions– I can’t believe all that is housed in the Art Expeditions (virtual field trips that explore the creative world, from painting to literature and performing arts)! Explore masterpieces and artists through the ages, get to know the movements, learn more about iconic writers and their stories in the Page turners section, tour museums around the world and so much more!
The Art Institute of Chicago – They put 44,000+ works of art online for you to view in high resolution! The museum also includes a bibliography, exhibition history, notes on provenance, audio and video histories and descriptions, and educational resources like teacher manuals, lesson plans, and exams.
23 Art Museums with Virtual Resources For Your Homeschool
The British Museum and Google Cultural Institute teamed up to create one of our favorite interactive projects: The Museum of the World. The British Museum’s digital art collection lets users travel through time while seeing how each historical piece in their collection connects with others.
The Frick Collection – Located in the Henry Clay Frick House (New York City, New York), the Frick Collection houses the art collection of industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The collection features some of the best-known paintings by major European artists like Bellini, Rembrandt, Vermeer, as well as numerous works of sculpture and porcelain. The entire museum can be viewed virtually.
Frida Kahlo Museum – Also known as La Casa Azúl (the Blue House) and located in Mexico City. In Google Street view style you can take a virtual tour of the museum both inside and out.
The Georgie O’Keeffe Museum – Located in Sante Fe, New Mexico. dedicated to the artistic legacy of Georgia O’Keeffe and her work on American Modernism. The museum website offers creative activities, stories, and education about Georgia O’Keeffe’s life, along with six virtual exhibits available through Google Arts and Culture: Georgia O’Keeffe, Modernism, Oil Paint, Canvas, American Modernism, United States.
The J. Paul Getty Museum – Located in Los Angeles, California. The collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum comprises Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art from the Neolithic to Late Antiquity; European art—including illuminated manuscripts, paintings, drawings, sculpture, and decorative arts—from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century; and international photography from its inception to the present day.
Guggenheim – Featuring over 1,700 artworks by more than 625 artists, the Collection Online presents a searchable database of selected artworks from the Guggenheim’s permanent collection of approximately 8,000 artworks. There are also Virtual Group Tours with an actual guide, as well as printable activities for kids. (Google Arts & Culture also has an awesome section on the Guggenheim!)
The Hermitage Museum Located in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The second-largest and eighth-most visited art museum in the world. The Hermitage has over 60,000 pieces of artwork on display, including works like the Peacock Clock by James Cox, Madonna Litta by Leonardo Da Vinci, and works by Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Antonio Canova. The online touris extremely comprehensive and allows you to virtually walk through all 6 buildings in the main complex, treasure galley, and 9 different exhibition projects.
High Museum of Art – Located in Atlanta, Georgia. It offers over 15,000 works of art in its collection and is the leading art museum in the southeastern U.S. The museum focuses on 19th- and 20th-century American art, historic and contemporary decorative arts and design, European paintings, modern and contemporary art, photography, folk and self-taught art, and African art. The museum’s partnership with Google Arts and Culture offers 4 online exhibits for viewing: Bill Traylor’s Drawings of People, Animals, and Events; How Iris van Herpen Transformed Fashion; Incredible, Innovative, and Unexpected Contemporary Furniture Designs; Photos From the Civil Rights Movement
La Galleria Nazionale – Located in Rome, Italy, displays about 1,100 paintings and sculptures of the 19th and 20th centuries — the largest collection in Italy. It features work from famous Italian artists like Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Alberto Burri, and foreign artists like Cézanne, Monet, Pollock, Rodin, and Van Gogh. It has teamed up with Google to offer 16 different virtual exhibits for online viewing.
The Louvre – The world’s largest museum. Explore the The Body in Movement, Founding Myths: From Hercules to Darth Vader, and much more through their 360-degree viewing feature. They also have a Louvre for Kids with easier wording and engaging cartoon like navigation, kids can view and learn about the art at the gallery.
The Met – Located in NYC, The Met has many of it’s exhibitions online. You can view photos of the pieces, read background information, and some even have video tours! The Met also developed #MetKids for, with, and by kids—but parents and teachers can have just as much fun using it. It has features like a fun and highly interactive map, a “time machine” search function, informational and how-to videos, and so much more.
The Museo Nacional del Prado located in Madrid Spain, is considered to have one of the greatest collections of European art in the world and offers guests the single largest collection of Spanish art. The collection currently comprises around 8,200 drawings, 7,600 paintings, 4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures. Well known works include Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez, The Third of May 1808 by Francisco De Goya, and The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. The museum’s online gallery allows you to get a close look at over 10,000 different pieces of art.
The National Gallery – Located in London. Click and scroll your way around with their three interactive virtual tour options. 1 showcasing 18 different rooms in the museum, 1 showcasing the Sainsbury Wing, and a Google Virtual tour. The National Gallery has hundreds of paintings in its collection ready to be viewed online, many of which are from the Renaissance period.
Museum of Modern Art – Founded in 1929, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in midtown Manhattan was the first museum devoted to the modern era. Through Google Arta & Culture you can view 129 artworks from MoMA’s collection.
Musée d’Orsay – Instantly transport to the middle of Paris with the Musée d’Orsay and their online tours and art collection. Here you can explore art history with the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces from renowned artists such as Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, and many more.
Rijksmuseum – located in Amsterdam the Rijkmuseum showcases the masterworks from the Dutch Golden Age, including works from Vermeer and Rembrandt. Google offers a 3D virtual museum tourthrough Street View, where you can zoom in on every tiny detail of each work of art, and listen to stories about 18 masterpieces
San Diego Museum of Art – 360-degree scans of your favorite galleries, zoom in to see art details, and read full label text in both English and Spanish. they also offer FREE docent tours through Zoom.
The Tate Modern – Check out this video tour of their famous Andy Warhol exhibit. Museum curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran talk in-depth about Andy Warhol and his work through the lens of the immigrant story, his LGBTQ identity, and more.
The Van Gogh Museum – home to the largest collection of van Gogh pieces in the world. The museum, virtual tours, ebook “stories,” and online collection dive into the life of van Gogh and the inspiration behind his art. Moreover, we think teachers everywhere will appreciate how big a fan he was of reading books!
The Vatican Museums – You can finally say you’ve seen the Sistine Chapel thanks to this online program! And, you can also virtually visit the Raphael Rooms, the Chiaramonti Museum, and more historic sites through these virtual tours.
Tips For Making The Most Of Your Virtual Art Museum Field Trip
Learn more about the a specific artist or artist style/time period
Recreate a work of art or style – don’t think you can do this, then try using a coloring book like Art Masterpieces to Color, or one of Dover Masterworks coloring books for different artists.
The Famous Artists Series: The You ARE An Artist Clubhouse Membership offers 47 famous artists video lessons for your homeschool including:
Vermeer
Michelangelo
da Vinci
Warhol
Monet
Rockwell
Rembrandt
Lichtenstein
Audubon
Beatrix Potter
… and a new one added about once a month!
The Famous Artists series is exclusive to the You ARE an Artist Complete Clubhouse. There is so much to learn about art, artists, and art history! The Famous Artist series is the perfect way to introduce these master artists and their works to your kids!
Here you will find everything you need for a famous artist Eric Carle homeschool study. “Eric Carle is acclaimed and beloved as the creator of brilliantly illustrated and designed picture books children. His best known book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, has eaten it’s way into the hearts of millions of children all over the world and has been translated into 66 languages and sold over 50 million copies. Since The Very Hungry Caterpillar was was published in 1969, Eric Carle has illustrated more than 70 books. This includes many best sellers which he wrote. More than 152 million copies of his books have sold around the world!” – Nana
“And the child in me was joyfully coming to life.”
Eric Carle
Listen to Nana’s Artist Eric Carle Homeschool Study
Read Nana’s Famous Artist Eric Carle Podcast TRANSCRIPT HERE.
An Overview of Our Eric Carle Homeschool Study
1:29 The Very Hungry Caterpillar
2:20 Eric Carle’s early life and WWII
4:30 The influence of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and modern painters
5:25 Advertising career
5:40 Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
6:34 The hidden story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar
7:20 The thousands of letters Eric Carle received from children
Listen to Nana’s Artist Eric Carle Podcast on YouTube
“The child I am helping might just be me.”
Eric Carle, about responding to children’s letters
When you think of Eric Carle, you may first think of him as an author, but he was an incredible artist. He wrote and illustrated over 70 children’s books. Carle was born in New York (June 25, 1929) but moved to Germany as a young child. While in Germany, he attended a prestigious art school and thus began his career in art and design. He moved back to New York as an adult and began working in graphic design and advertising.
I knew even as a child that, when I grew up, I would be an artist of some kind.
-Eric Carle
It was not until 1967 that he published his first book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, which he did in collaboration with Bill Martin Jr. In 1968, he wrote and illustrated 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo. He quickly followed that with his most famous book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
In addition to his many books, he created The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art to showcase national and international picture book art. Other museums also have exhibits dedicated to Eric Carle’s illustrations.
In May of 2021, Eric Carle died and left behind two grown children and a legacy in books and art that children worldwide will love for many years to come.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is his most famous book, but my son loved “Slowly, Slowly, Slowly,” said the Sloth so much that we both had all the words memorized. We own over a dozen Eric Carle books and have borrowed others from the library.
Eric Carle’s books are well known and loved by children and adults alike. They tell fun and silly stories with stunning illustrations.
Many of them are also educational and teach numbers, shapes, letters, or other early concepts.
“When I was a small boy, my father would take me on walks across meadows and through woods… in my books, I honor my father by writing about small living things.”
-Eric Carle
Eric Carle mainly wrote for younger children, but he wrote a book of short stories about his own life: Flora and Tiger, for older children.
I try to express the essence of my stories and ideals very clearly, using simple shapes.
-Eric Carle
Carle had an engaging style for his illustrations. He loved rich colors and created all of his images using collages. He would paint the colors onto large sheets of paper and then hand cut the pieces to put together to create the illustrations.
This unique style makes his illustrations easy to identify and gives the pictures a fun, playful style.
Eric Carle Homeschool Art Lessons
There are so many delightful ways to include art lessons in your homeschool study of artist Eric Carle. Children tend to love his passion for color and his fun animals.
Color Wheel Homeschool Art Lessonin the Style of Eric Carle
First, Eric Carle has a book titled, Hello, Red Fox. This book helps students learn about and understand the color wheel and complementary colors. It would be an excellent book to pair with Nana’s Color Wheel lesson that honor’s Eric Carle. (This lesson would be easy enough for younger students and still teach older students a lot about colors.)
Second, what better way to combine artist study, literature, and art than to do projects based on the main concepts in some of Carle’s most beloved picture books.
For example, you could read A House for Hermit Crab and then try this fun Hermit Crab lesson.
There are many other great pairings from the You Are an Artist Membership courses. You could pick your favorite or do a whole series, including:
For older students, you could even have them try their hand at writing their own short picture books complete with illustrations. They could use the chalk pastel lessons and Eric Carle illustrations as inspiration to help them get started.
Additional Eric Carle Resources
You can visit the Eric Carle website to find out more about his life, see a list of all of his books, and read fascinating answers to some of his more frequently asked questions. There are also some free downloadable games and activities to go along with many of his books.
Another great resource is the thirty-minute video, Eric Carle, Picture Writer. Our family was able to watch the video for free using Hoopla. (Hoopla is a free service offered through many public libraries that allows you to borrow digital materials.)
Additional Resources for Studying Famous Artists in Your Homeschool
Nana’s Eric Carle lesson is a part of our Famous Artists Series. We offer 47 famous artists video lessons for your homeschool including:
Dawn is a passionate follower of Jesus, wife to Chris, and homeschool mom of four. In her spare time she loves to read, hike, and write on her blog Schoolin’ Swag. She enjoys reviewing curriculum and helping moms find the right fit for their family.
Join Nana and explore famous artists with her Hudson River School homeschool art lesson. In the early 19th century, a group of American artists dedicated themselves to a style of painting that would have its roots in the United States of America, rather than looking back to Europe for inspiration. They were mesmerized by the great open and untamed landscape of the unexplored territory to the west. That part of the country that lay outside of the cities in the eastern United States.
Hudson River School Show Notes
Highlights
1:55 How Hudson River School Got It’s Name
2:20 Plein Art Style of Painting – What Does Plein Air Mean?
2:37 Three Themes of America in the 19th Century
3:46 Thomas Cole, Founder of the Hudson River School
5:46 The Second Generation of the Hudson River School
5:60 Famous Artist Frederic Church
6:09 Founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
6:40 Famous Artist Albert Bierstadt
7:55 Manifest Destiny and Industrialization
9:19 Hudson River School Paintings at the Smithsonian
The Hudson River School artists’ thoughts lay in three themes : new lands to be discovered, the exploration and illustrations of the untouched beauty, and finally, settlement. These landscape painters helped to create what is known now as the Hudson River School. The Hudson River School was a group of artists whose artistic vision was influenced by Romanticism, and they inspired an American landscape art movement.
Nature, in the form of the American landscape, is a reflection of God.
Hudson River School artists
Famous Artist Frederic Church and the 1860 Great Meteor
American landscape artist Frederic Church was an influential artist from the Hudson River School who painted the 1860 Great Meteor painting from the Catskill evening sky. The 1860 Great Meteor event occurred on July 20, 1860. It was an interesting phenomenon that was reported from various locations all over the United States. There are some fascinating learning trails to explore for the upcoming Perseids Meteor Shower that occurs every year.
Nana is passionate about helping you realize you ARE an artist! Not only an artist with chalk pastels but with homeschooling, creative spaces, favorite family recipes and more. Nana also enjoys chatting – especially about art. If you have followed along with any of her You ARE an Artist video art lessons, you know that. She also enjoys sharing photos and thoughts on topics while she is being creative in her studio space on her back porch. That is where she will be chatting with you – from her back porch. It’s Nana’s You ARE an Artist Podcast!
Famous Artist Andy Warhol was an American artist, film director and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as Pop Art.
In 1961 Warhol came up with the concept of using mass-produced commercial goods in his art. He would use commercial images and produce them over and over. One of the earliest and most famous was the Campbell Soup can. In one painting he had 200 cans repeated over and over!
Andy Warhol was a different kind of artist. While many artists focus entirely on their art and with no interest in personal fame, Warhol wanted to be rich and famous. His paintings have become iconic in American culture.
Nana is passionate about helping you realize you ARE an artist! Not only an artist with chalk pastels but with homeschooling, creative spaces, favorite family recipes and more. Nana also enjoys chatting – especially about art. If you have followed along with any of her You ARE an Artist video art lessons, you know that. She also enjoys sharing photos and thoughts on topics while she is being creative in her studio space on her back porch. That is where she will be chatting with you – from her back porch. It’s Nana’s You ARE an Artist Podcast!
-Special thanks to Erin Vincent and her artists for the beautiful photos.Visit her at Nourishing My Scholar.
In 1961, Famous Artist Roy Lichtenstein was challenged by one of his young sons. His son pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic book and said, “I bet you can’t paint as good as that, eh, Dad?” Lichtenstein took the challenge and his career in Pop Art was bolstered. Thus came the first large-scale depiction of comic book characters and the famous “Ben Day” dots. The dots were used by newspaper ink for coloring the iconic Disney mouse in the painting “Look Mickey!”
Roy Lichtenstein was trying to find his niche in the exploding Pop Art medium. We will see how he was inspired by comics; though hounded by critics for years of copying stroke by stroke comic book artists. He was inspired by comics featuring war, crashing airplanes and bombs plus romantic stories of the war heroes. He will show us how he was searching for anything that was emotionally strong – from these newspaper comics heroes to even cartoon animals!
Nana is passionate about helping you realize you ARE an artist! Not only an artist with chalk pastels but with homeschooling, creative spaces, favorite family recipes and more. Nana also enjoys chatting – especially about art. If you have followed along with any of her You ARE an Artist video art lessons, you know that. She also enjoys sharing photos and thoughts on topics while she is being creative in her studio space on her back porch. That is where she will be chatting with you – from her back porch. It’s Nana’s You ARE an Artist Podcast!
-Special thanks to Erin Vincent and her artists for the beautiful photos.Visit her at Nourishing My Scholar.
In his short life, famous artist Georges Seurat held a long-reaching paintbrush in his hand. His influence with that brush brought about a renewal of public interest in the Impressionist artists of the day. His paintings changed how our very eyes can be coaxed into seeing colors optically. Important painting masters such as Vincent Van Gogh and Pissarro used dots of colors that Seurat believed could revolutionize the art world. These artists were laughed at by art critics who called the technique pointillism as an insult!
The technique is still used and pointillism is no longer thought of as an insult. Modern 20th century Pop Art painters such as Roy Lichtenstein used this “fool the eye” technique. Lichtenstein turned pointillism into a highly successful career, his artwork selling in the millions to galleries and patrons worldwide.
“Some say they see poetry in my paintings; I see only science.”
– Georges Seurat
All due to a very young Frenchman, laboring away with his idea of dots or points of color.
Happy clouds! Happy trees! Famous artist Bob Ross made us believe that he was speaking to a single viewer. And, in doing so, he painted an illusion that he was giving us a private lesson.
Ross’ life was one of “happy coincidence” — the right art teacher taught him the perfect technique to finish an oil painting in 30 minutes. That skill was very useful years later as 30 minutes was the time that he would be given to film “Joy of Painting “ segments! Ross also flawlessly executed the saying that comic Steve Martin made famous: “Be so good that they can’t ignore you.”
We are still listening to and watching Bob Ross on television 25 years after his death. So, let’s put on a smock, get a palette with Van Dye brown paint, a big brush, and find out why this soft-spoken artist still lifts our spirits and fascinates us!
Nana is passionate about helping you realize you ARE an artist! Not only an artist with chalk pastels but with homeschooling, creative spaces, favorite family recipes and more. Nana also enjoys chatting – especially about art. If you have followed along with any of her You ARE an Artist video art lessons, you know that. She also enjoys sharing photos and thoughts on topics while she is being creative in her studio space on her back porch. That is where she will be chatting with you – from her back porch. It’s Nana’s You ARE an Artist Podcast!
-Special thanks to Erin Vincent and her artists for the beautiful photos.Visit her at Nourishing My Scholar.
