Oil Paintings & Toulouse-Lautrec Studies

I mentioned before that we were studying Toulouse-Lautrec for art in our homeschooling.  What that means for us with a 3rd grader, 1st grader, pre-k-er, and a 2 year old (just to keep it interesting) is that over the course of a week or two I pick an artist, we look up and I read to them a small bio, we find on the map where they were born, we look at selections of their art (online mostly or in books if I happen to have any), we talk about their style, we talk about when they fit into the world’s timeline and what else was happening in the world at the same time (just tie everything together in their minds), and then we try our hands at that artist’s style of painting or at least in the medium they were most famous for.  This week we did Toulouse-Lautrec.  He was a favorite of mine.  I like me some crazies, y’all.  And he fit the bill.  Then we finished off the study with real oils.  I promised it at the beginning of the study like I do most of my promises – “Huh, what a great idea!”  Followed closely by, “What was I thinking?”  Since this was especially daunting for me I waited until Matt was home to tackle it.  It was a lot of set up, a lot of clean up, but a lot of fun!

 

 

 

 

From left to right, top to bottom: Matt’s – Interpretation of a Laptop, TheOldest’s – Rainbow, mine – Smiley, TheMiddlest’s - A Mii, ThePrincess’s - A Robot, and BigMan’s – Experimentation.  Didn’t they turn out great?