For this project we were all about circles. Well, it's a little more complicated than that.
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| Sonia Delaunay |
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| Robert Delaunay |
My 6-12 year olds looked at the work of Sonia and Robert Delaunay, (1885-1979) and (1885-1941). They were part of the bumping modern art scene in Paris at the turn of last century. They experimented with cubism and fauvism before founding the movement called 'orphism', which is all about rhythmic shapes and the interaction between colors and the relationships they create, particularly that between high contrasting colors.
So, after analyzing some of Sonia and Robert's work, we set off on our color and shape journey.
Day 1:
Drawing process
Using round templates of various sizes we drew many concentric circles. When drawing our circles, shapes and lines, we were aware of balance, variety, rhythm and unity: big and small, thick and thin, high and low, horizontal and vertical, whole and half, etc.
Coloring process
After drawing our compositions we began to color with oil pastels. We are only using primary, secondary and achromatic colors (black, white, gray) and are paying special attention to placing colors next to each other which create high contrast, such as complimentary colors, bright and dull, dark and light, and warm next to cool colors.
Day 2:
Serious color theory and composition was at work on our second day. We were going for high contrast, like Delaunay and the Orphism movement did, so lights and darks next to each other, cools next to warms, pure colors next to tints or shades, black next to pure colors, complimentary colors next to complimentary colors, etc. The kids regularly checked in with the color wheel, as well as Sonia Delaunay's work during the coloring process. They kids' hand were HURTING, as our objective was to use the oil pastels to get super creamy results...so we pushed on!
After filling all our shapes with oil pastel, we painted over each shape with a brush and olive oil. This gave our oil pastels a painterly, inky feel. You could use a gloss medium too, but why not use up that old olive oil you're not crazy about? And it's a fun twist!
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| 7-12 year olds |
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| 6-9 year olds |
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| 5-6 year olds. Watercolor and black oil pastel. |