Romare Bearden

Figure and Mixed Media Narrative Collage

Romare Bearden

• Collage Artist, painter (1911-1988)

• Romare Bearden was an African-American who is internationally recognized for his lifelong work as a collage artist.

•Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He moved to Harlem in NewYork City when he was a young child and grew up there in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance.

The Harlem Renaissance (1919-1929), was a period in American cultural history when Black artists felt a need to contribute their African heritage and pride in a positive way to the visual, performing and literary arts.

Harlem became the center of this artistic rebirth period during the 1920's when Romare Bearden was a young artist.

•Romare Bearden is internationally recognized for his lifelong work as a collage artist. His work tells many captivating and inspiring stories to draw attention to social realism and to celebrate the African-American experience.

COLLAGEDuring the 1960's he began working almost exclusively in collage. Collage comes from the French word coller, “to gum or stick something together.”

His work was created by gluing fragments of paper, fabric, scraps, photographs, drawings, and images inmagazines and newspapers to a flat surface. In addition, he used watercolors, oil paints, and inks to make his collages. He enjoyed many art forms and styles including African,Asian and European art.

Time Travel Tuesday

http://www.brwnpaperbag.com/2011/05/24/time-travel-tuesday-romare-bearden/

Farewell Eugene

School Bell

The Train

ROCKET TO THE MOON

Jazz

GREGORY CREWDSON

EDWARD HOPPER

SUNDAY, 1926, Oil on Canvas

CINDY SHERMAN

UNTITLED FILM STILL, Photograph

Assignment: Figure and mixed media narrative collage in the style of Romare Bearden

•Apply skills learned from previous lessons including compositional skills of foreground, middle ground and background, basic collage procedures including layering and working” back to front”.•Must include at least one figure as the center of interest. •Distortion must be used to define the figures. See Romare Bearden examples •Collages must be narrative and convey a particular mood. Must be creative and inventive with the mixed media materials creating a dynamic aysmmetrical composition, with a clear center of interest. Must have sketchbook examples that support your narrative ideas.•Students must include a written narrative, (at least 2 paragraphs) about your collage. Must be able to explain significant event and the mood it conveys.

Figure and mixed media assignment cont’d.

•Completed artwork must include the use of either Analagous or Complementary color schemes used to help convey the narrative or used to express the mood of the work .•Show evidence of care and effort to produce a creative, original work of art•Artwork clearly reflects the influence of Romare Bearden based on visuals displayed and discussed in class•Artwork expresses a complete idea and is completed by due date:

Materials: White paper, 18 x 24 inches, various collage materials including; magazines, various colored paper, computer-generated images of textures and figures and glue.

Art Terms:

• Distortion: a lack of proportionality in an image• Proportion: a comparative size relationship between

several objects or between parts of a single object or figure. In figure drawing, the correct relationship between size of the head and the body.

• Figure and Ground: The relationship between figure and ground is one of the most important relationships in design. In simplest terms the figure is what you notice and the ground is everything else.

• Narrative :a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.

Art Terms cont:

• Photomontage is the process and result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs.

• Contrast: the difference in visual properties that makes an object (or its representation in an image) distinguishable from other objects and the background. Contrast is determined by the difference in the color and brightness of the object and other objects within the same field of view.

Art Terms cont:

Analagous colors• Analagous colors are next to

each other on the color wheel. These colors will have a common base color. For instance: blue, blue-violet, and violet. Another example is yellow-green, green, and blue-green.

Art Terms cont:

Complementary Color• Complementary colors are

pairs of colors that are of “opposite” hue in some color model.