Third grade artists looked at the art and life of
Amadeo Modigiliani. Although a sculptor at heart, he is most famous for his paintings. He painted portraits from life. While the people were recognizable, they were
distorted. His portraits typically featured
elongated, oval tilted heads and long necks. We used mirrors to observe the basic shapes of ourselves--our eyes, our hair, eyebrows, etc. Unlike Modigliani, who was a painter, we used construction paper and glue in our collages. Collage is a french word meaning glue. Every third grader has a self-portrait hanging in the art room. It's been fun for the students trying to guess who is who.
2nd grade artists looked at Edward Hopper. His most famous painting is Nighthawks where several lonely figures sit in an illuminated diner. Hopper was an American Realist painter; he painted what he saw. His paintings have been described as things you would see if you were driving through a new town. He was fascinated with light and shadow. We tried to capture light and shadow in our city paintings. We used warm colors in the sky and cool colors for our buildings. Our buildings are lit up on one side and painted with a tint of a cool color (light blue, light purple). The shadow side is a bit darker. We began our cities buildings by drawing a simple arrow that pointed up and creatively turned these arrows into what you see here.
