Henri Matisse
(Calendar is at bottom of post)
Henri Matisse Bio Presentation
For grades K to 1
Art vocabulary words: Composition, Abstract
Henri Matisse was a French artist a long time ago. He didn’t know he wanted to be an artist
until he was 21 and his mother gave him a painting set. Then he knew it was all he wanted to do. Matisse
painted with bright colors, and his work got more and more abstract as he got older. Abstract means he takes the subject
he wants to paint - like a person, or a tree - and he strips away the
details. He uses just enough of the
shape people will recognize so they will know what his subject is. These are pictures Matisse painted of a
goldfish bowl. (Show pictures 1 and 2)
Do the colors look real to
you? See how he can make the parts of
the picture very simple, but we know what they are?
When he got older, Matisse made art by cutting out
shapes from pieces of paper. He called
this “drawing with scissors”. This is a
picture of him working in his studio. (Show picture 3)
He would arrange his cut outs on a
board, or on a wall, and pin them in place, moving them around until he liked
the way they looked. The way you arrange
the parts of a picture is called Composition. Matisse liked working by pinning up his
pieces of paper because he could easily move the colors and shapes around until
he liked how they looked. Sometimes he
didn’t take the pieces down and glue them until he needed more wall space
because he had filled up all his walls.
Here
are two collages Matisse made. (show pictures 4 and 5)
They are abstract, but I bet you
can see some things in them that you recognize.
(Hopefully
kids will talk.)
Today
you are going to make an abstract collage of a goldfish bowl.
Matisse Goldfish Collage Project –
for grades K to 1
Getting
ready
Presenters, first
thing, please sign onto the Art Lit cart sign-out sheet on the wall. That way we know where the art carts are at
any time. Presenters should only be
coming in at a time they have officially signed up for. Next, please check the Art Lit cart for the
supplies you will need. The tools and
the presentation folders should be on the cart, but you will need to take a
package of paper from the box marked “K -1st project”.
Should be on cart
Presentation folder
Desk protector sheets (30)
Glue sticks (30)
Bag of pencils (30)
Pencil sharpener
Scissors (30)
Take from counter
1 package of papers, containing:
30 sheets of blue paper
30 sheets of white tissue
30 black rectangles
90 small red and orange papers
Bag of pre-cut green leaves
In the
classroom, set up the kids’ places for them.
Each student starts out with a desk cover sheet, a sheet of blue paper
for their background, a black rectangle of paper, a piece of white tissue
paper, a pencil, a pair of scissors, and a glue stick. Also give each child 3 red and orange bits of
paper (one of each color), 3 green tissue leaves and about 7 dark green pointed
leaf shapes.
The
Project
(Things
you might want to say to the kids are in purple.) Try to think of questions to ask the kids as you go
along. Present the artist to the kids
and show his work. Then show them the
sample of our project. Keep Matisse’s
Goldfish paintings out where they can see them.
Have the kids start by writing their names AND their teacher’s name in
pencil on the back of their paper.
Introduction
Today
we are going to make a collage in the style of Matisse, using his technique of
Painting with Scissors. The theme of the
collage will be a goldfish bowl. This will work best if you make a
project along with the kids as they do, showing them each step in the process.
Step
1: Put a tabletop in your picture.
Put
your blue paper in front of you in the tall direction. Glue your black rectangle onto the lower part
of your blue paper. This will be the
table that your goldfish bowl sits on.
Step
2: Put leaves in your background
Matisse
liked to draw plants around his goldfish bowls, so we are going to use green
paper to make leaves around our own goldfish bowls. Take your green leaf shapes and glue them
above your tabletop. They can be near
the edges of the paper. They will look
like plants growing behind your goldfish bowl when you are finished.
Step
3: Put your goldfish bowl in your picture
Take
your sheet of white tissue paper.
Carefully use your glue stick to put some stripes of glue on the
back. Be careful not to tear it, because
tissue paper is very thin. Then glue it
down with the curved side at the bottom, sitting on your tabletop. It’s okay if it is in front of some of the
green leaves.
Step
4: Draw and cut out your goldfish
Matisse
liked to use bright colors that stood out from each other. We are going to use bright red and orange
paper to make our goldfish. Take your
pencil and draw three simple goldfish shapes on the pieces of red and orange
paper. Just draw the outlines, no
details. Use one piece of paper for each
fish. Make them big so they will show up
in your picture. After you have drawn
the fish, cut them out.
Step
5: Arrange your goldfish in the bowl and
glue them
Take
your three goldfish and put them in your fishbowl. Move them around until they look good to
you. Can you make them look like they
are swimming? You can overlap two of
your fish a little bit to show they are in front of one another if you like. When you are happy with where they are, glue
them down.
Step
6: If you like, take out a black crayon
or marker and draw eyes on your goldfish.
Examples
Examples
Afterwards
Please count
the items before you leave the room (scissors, glue sticks and pencils), and
ask kids to look for missing items. PLEASE
SAVE ALL UNUSED PAPER AND LARGE SCRAPS FOR RE-USE. Put them into the box in the library.
Once the
projects are dry, they can go into the folder with your teacher’s name on
it. Folders will be on the counter. We may need the artwork for display during
the year, so we don’t want to leave it in teachers’ rooms, because they may
send it home. We will get all the kids’
artwork back to their teachers before the end of the year to go home with them.
Henri Matisse Bio Presentation
For grades 2 to 5
Art vocabulary words: Composition, Abstract,
Reduce, Organic
Henri Matisse was born in northern France in 1869. He studied
law in Paris, but he didn’t enjoy the job. When he was 21, Matisse had surgery for
appendicitis, and he was so bored while he recovered, his mother gave him
painting supplies. He later said, “From the moment I held the box of colors in
my hands, I knew this was my life.”
Matisse returned to Paris to study art. He was inspired by other
artists such as Cezanne and Van Gogh. He admired their use of bold color and
brushwork and used their techniques in his own paintings. At that time it was unusual for artists to
use bright colors and abstract shapes that did not look natural, and art
critics called the artists who did this “Les Fauves” (pronounced “lay fove”) , which is French for
wild beasts. Matisse’s artwork became
more abstract as time went on, filled with bright colors and swirling
shapes. This is Matisse’s painting
called “Woman with a Hat”. (show picture 1)
Matisse traveled a lot. He liked the bright sunny light and colors he
saw in the south of France and in Morocco, and he used those same bright colors
in his work. He admired the relaxed
Moroccan lifestyle, and Matisse said he wanted his art to be "a soothing,
calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair." He liked the idea of spending time staring at
a goldfish bowl, and he painted quite a few goldfish bowls. (Show pictures 2 and 3)
When he got older, Matisse made art by cutting out
shapes from large pieces of paper painted in flat colors. He called this method “drawing with
scissors”. This is a picture of him
working in his studio. (Show picture 4)
He would arrange his cut outs on a
board, or on a wall, and pin them in place, moving them around until he liked
the way they looked. The way you balance
a picture by choosing where to put the different parts of it, and how you
balance the colors and shapes, is called Composition. Matisse liked working by pinning up his
pieces of paper because he could easily move the colors and shapes around until
he felt like the balance was perfect. Sometimes
he didn’t take the pieces down and glue them until he needed more wall space
because he had filled up all his walls.
Look at this collage by Matisse. It is called “The sadness of the king”. (Show picture 5.)
In abstract art,
the artist takes away all the extra detail from a subject, and shows it in a
very simple form. This is called Reducing
the subject. This picture (show picture 6)
is very simplified, but you can
still tell what it is, can’t you?
These are some of
Matisse’s collages. (Show pictures 7, 8, 9, 10)
Look at the way Matisse composed
his collages. He used blocks of
color as a background, then he put abstract shapes on top. He used a lot of black and white. Look at the shapes he used. What do they look like to you? They are organic shapes. They are shapes you would find in nature, not
things made by people.
This collage is
called “Beasts of the Sea” (#7).
Matisse Ocean Collage Project –
for grades 2 to 5
Getting
ready
Presenters, first
thing, please sign onto the Art Lit cart sign-out sheet on the wall. That way we know where the art carts are at
any time. Presenters should only be
coming in at a time they have officially signed up for. Next, please check the Art Lit cart for the
supplies you will need. The presentation
folders and the tools should all be kept on the carts. You will need to take a package of paper from
the box on the counter marked “2nd to 5th project”. These are the supplies you will need:
On the cart:
Presentation folder
Desk protector sheets (30)
Glue sticks (30)
Bag of pencils (30)
Pencil sharpener (1)
Scissors (30)
From the counter:
Bag of paper, containing:
30 sheets of heavy white paper
1 bundle of colored paper rectangles
A stack of white paper scraps
Other colored paper scraps
In the
classroom, set up the kids’ places for them.
Each student starts out with a desk cover sheet, a sheet of heavy white
paper, a pencil, a pair of scissors, and a glue stick. You will need to portion out all the colored
paper rectangles fairly evenly. The
easiest way to do this is to count how many table groups you have, then deal
out the stack of rectangles into that many piles. That should give every group about the same
number of each color. Put a pile of
colored rectangles in the center of each table group. Divide up the white paper and other colored
scraps as best you can so all the groups have white and a good variety of
colors. If your classroom has any students
who sit alone, make sure they each get at least 6 different rectangles and some
white to use.
The
Project
(Things
you might want to say to the kids are in purple.) Try to think of questions to ask the kids as you go
along. Present the artist to the kids
and show his work. Then show them the
samples of our project. Put the Matisse
collage samples where the kids can see them.
Have the kids start by writing their names AND their teacher’s name in
pencil on the back of their paper.
Introduction
Today
we are going to make a collage in the style of Matisse, using his technique of
Painting with Scissors. The theme of the
collage will be the ocean. Think about
what the subject of your art piece will be before you start. Will it be the seashore? Or the bottom of the sea? It could be seabirds, or fish, waves or tide pools. It can be anything that has to do with the
sea.
Step 1: Make
your boldly colored background
We will start by
making a background for your picture with blocks of color. First you will choose what colors you want to
use. Matisse liked to use bright colors
that stood out from each other. Bright
colored tissue paper and black paper work well as backgrounds. Choose three or four colored rectangles to
use as background blocks, then try arranging them in different ways on your
paper until you find the composition that
you like best. Composition means the way the parts of a picture are arranged.
If
you like, you can overlap the background colors, or leave the white showing in
places, or cut the background blocks into different rectangular shapes. When you are happy with the composition, glue
your background papers down.
Step 2: Draw
and cut out your shapes
Now that you have a background, think about
what sort of simple natural objects – organic
shapes
– you want
to have in the picture. You might use plants,
rocks, animals, waves, sand, the current of the water, the wind. You will need to draw your subject in a very
simplified way. No details. You want to draw the outline of the subject
so you can tell what it is just by the shape.
By doing this, you will be reducing the subject to an abstract form.
Carefully
choose which colors you want to use.
Matisse used a lot of white cut-outs in his collages, and he used a lot
of black. Black and white contrast well
with the background colors.
Draw
the shapes with pencil on the colors you want to use, then carefully cut them
out. Don’t waste the colored paper. Try to cut out your shapes along the edge of
the paper, so the rest of the piece can still be used again.
DON’T
GLUE ANYTHING YET, WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE ALL YOUR PIECES.
Step 3: Compose your picture
When
you have all your cut-outs made, Compose them on your paper to
make a picture. You can rearrange them
until you like the way the colors and shapes balance on the page. You can overlap the paper cut outs if you
want to. Matisse never glued his shapes
down until he was completely satisfied with the composition.
Step 4: Glue your cut outs in place
When
you are happy with your composition, start to glue the cut
outs down with your glue stick. Lift
them up one at a time and glue them back down.
Examples of Matisse Ocean Collage
Class Examples of Ocean Collages
Examples of Matisse Ocean Collage
Class Examples of Ocean Collages
Afterwards
Please count
the items before you leave the room (scissors, glue sticks and pencils), and
ask kids to look for missing items. Ask the kids to pick up all the large or
unused pieces of colored paper and return them to the bag. PLEASE
SAVE ALL UNUSED PAPER AND LARGE SCRAPS FOR RE-USE. Put them into the box in the library. Take all projects back to the Art Lit area,
do not leave them in teachers’ rooms. Once
the projects are dry, they can go into the folder with your teacher’s name on
it. Folders will be on the counter.
Thank you! January 2018
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