Week 7: Henri Matisse collage

PANEL WITH MASK

1947

In my continuing efforts to introduce famous artists every so slightly into the curriculum, I talked to the kids about French artist Henri Matisse. He is a very famous painter, but at the end of his life, in the 1940s, became well known for his collage cutouts that he said were "painting with a brush."

I have done a bunch of drawing projects and emphasized line this fall, but this project had the goal of emphasizing several other things:
1. Abstract, graphic art
2. Color, with an emphasis on bright primary and secondary colors
3. Shape, with an emphasis on variety
4. Heirarchy, from large bold shapes to inticate small shapes
5. Layering of imagery to create dynamic compositions

To accomplish this, the kids were to pick two pieces of paper (one primary and one secondary on the color wheel) One of these was the background, the other was to be the large background shapes (Matisse often had background blocks of color). I tried to emphasize to the kids to make the large shapes alrge and bold and not too intricate. After they had done these two colors, they could choose two more colors from the scrap bin to use as medium and small shapes (Matisse had many smaller intricate shapes). I wanted the students to experiment with different shapes and not try to be literal.