Matisse - Artists who inspire - Art Lesson

I recently had an opportunity to teach an art lesson to a fabulous group of Grade 6 students.  I thought it would be a great opportunity to explore some Henri Matisse.

6 fun facts to know about Henri Matisse

• He was born in the countryside of Northern France.

• He did not discover his passion for art until he was 19 years old

• He was good friends with Pablo Picasso.

• He developed his own distinctive style.

• After abdominal surgery for cancer he was unable to paint. He began making his famous paper cut outs which he described as drawing with scissors.

• During his first exhibition with Andre Derain they were nicknamed the " the wild beasts" because their art work was considered "barbaric"

As I am in love with colour and shape I decided to explore the later artworks of Matisse. I set the task for children to explore colour and shape with their scissors.

Materials needed:

• Black card

• Coloured sheets of paper

• Scissors

• Glue (pva) Glue sticks did not work so well....

Artwork by Joshua

Task:

For children to create a "Matisse like collage."

I told children they had to consider 5 elements when cutting and composing their composition. In each art work I wanted to see a :

• Geometric shape

• An organic shape

• A negative shape

• A positive shape

• And a repeating shape.

These were some of the pleasing results.

Artwork by Amy

Artwork by Jonathon

Happy creating!!