Art Series: Draw, Paint, Print like the Great Artists

Don't you love when you find a book that works great for a class you want to teach?   When I first saw this book "Draw  Paint Print like the Great Artists" by Marion Denchars I thought THIS book will be awesome to use in an art classes with a group of children.

And you know what... IT WAS!   :)

I have to tell you how much fun we had with this 224 page book.   18 different artists that we could discuss it was hard to break it down to just 6 classes.






One of the artists we learned about was Sonia Delaunay, was a Ukrainian-French artist who work explodes with colourful shapes in unexpected rhythms and patterns.   She loves to do abstract art.    Her work was always infused with abstract, geometric, and brightly coloured patterns.

Check out some of the work the children did.

I just love how the children took the ideas they learned and let them play out in their own ways.  Circles, layers, rectangles, and more.  I was particularly impressed with this one.

The young person who made this is a very shy quiet lad.   He needed a certain amount of prompting and quiet encouragement to attempt his hand.   Circles didn't appeal to this lad, and he seemed rather uncertain so I read out the description of Ms. Delaunay s work about how it showed geometric shapes.  That peeked his interest so I said.. you know geometic shapes like circles and triangles, and rectangles and squares...and he was off to the races.  :)   It was SO delightful to see this young fellow grab hold and figure out how to make it all work.     He was bravely different and I love it.  THIS is what I love about teaching art classes, and books like this that inspire and give ideas... I love them.

This is such a great book to use.

If you just want to use it within your family that would be very doable, or if you want to gift a child, this book is meant to used and worked with.

Pages where you can make a self portrait, do aboriginal drawing, learn to use space and so much more.

The set up is fairly simple.
Learn about the artist.  See examples of their style.   Learn how to copy that style.  Pages are given if using with an individual student to use, or you can just take the information and talk to a class of children and teach it.  This is a marvellous resource that I plan to use again with another class. 

I will continue to use it with my son in his schooling as well.. but art with a class is SO MUCH FUN.   Ideas that are spawned off each other... it's amazing to see the encouragement given, the delight in a child's eyes when they learn something new and accomplish it and the variety AND sense of pride that doing your own thing, while meeting the challenge of an artists gives.

It's why I like teaching art to children... in my own way.  :) 

Now I would be remiss if I failed to tell you where I got this great book, it comes my way courtesy of Raincoast Books.  224 pages, 18 artists, great for children 8-12 (or older), published by Laurence King and is about 8 x 11 inches.  Printed on heavier paper to withstand the rigors of being used by an artist.