EUROPEAN ART AND EUROPEAN ART AND CULTURE,CULTURE,

SOURCE AND INSPIRATION SOURCE AND INSPIRATION FOR EXTRA VALUEFOR EXTRA VALUE

IN EARLY EDUCATIONIN EARLY EDUCATION

2005/2006

TheThe European partners European partners

FirstFirst term 2005/2006 term 2005/2006Portraits , silhouettes, and our european

heritage

The artists we chose to study this year are not all born in France but they all have strong

connexions with the French artistic currents of the 20th century.

When discovering their biography, we realised that most of them had spend some time in France and got under each other’s influence so that it is sometimes difficult to identify them as French or Foreign artists,as if they had become Europeans

before their time….

The selections have been made depending on the artistic objectives we ment to achieve

or if the Artist’s work is connected with a special event

in France this year (exhibition)

Method and materialsWith the teacher, the children discovered various paintings

from ModiglianiThey described what they saw, what they liked and why

They mentioned the shapes and colours used by the artist They noticed some similarities in the various portraits

Then they tried to represent their own view of the portrait , a little bit like the artist!!!

They used tempera and brushes

Another way of dicovering our heritage through arts is to work with the events of the European calendar.

When it is Halloween, we tell tales about witches and make some drawings

Another style of portraits…

Traditional tales:

Goldy Lock made of cut coloured paper and

gold inked pencils

The elder ones ( five years old) went to discover the forest surrounding our town for three days in

a nature center, where they could sleep ans

study the life of the animals .They coloured these foxes portraits with chalks using specific

colours

We explained to the children that the owl is the symbol of the city of Athens, first place of our European

meeting

We showed them various

representations of owls in

Athens and in Greece

TreesTrees

Exploiting various techniquesExploiting various techniques

Discovering some Artists’ worksDiscovering some Artists’ works Klimt Klimt

Klein Klein Van GoghVan Gogh

Observing the countrysideObserving the countryside

KLIMT, exposed in the «  Grand Palais » of Paris this

automn and winter

He has been called the preeminent exponent of ART NOUVEAU. Klimt began (1883) as an artist-decorator. In 1886-92,

Klimt executed mural decorations for staircases at the Burgtheater and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Klimt was a cofounder and the first president of the Vienna Secession, a

group of modernist architects and artists who organized their own exhibition

society and gave rise to the SECESSION MOVEMENT, or the Viennese version of

Art Nouveau.

We used tempera and big flat brushes, and the colours

of autumn;

Before, we had been in the forest to observe trees and

mainly birches

KLIMT, « The tree of life »

Other graphic designs to help the children with the structures of these trees.

Oil Pastels

Gold and silver tempera

After the Artist Yves KLEIN, who worked with sponges

Yves Klein (28 April 1928 - 6 June 1962) was a French artist and is considered an important figure in post-war

European neo-DadaismMany of his early paintings were monochrome and in a

variety of colours. By the late 1950s, Klein's monochrome works were almost exclusively in a deep blue hue which

he eventually patented as International Klein Blue

Stuck sand and blue inks that run down

Volumes after Y.Klein

Paper stuck with sellotape and painted with acrylic

Trees with little squares of coloured paper

By observing the countryside around the school and in the forest

Photocopied Plasticine

By observing Van Gogh’s technique

Vincent van Gogh (March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890) was a

Dutch painter, classified as a Post-impressionist, and is

generally considered one of the greatest painters in the

history of European art. As the pioneer of what came to be

known as Expressionism, Van Gogh has had an enormous

influence on 20th century art, especially in the early part of

the century. His energetic approach to the painted

surface follows a lineage to the Abstract Expressionism

Our First project meeting in Athens November 2005

With the elder children ,we wish to work on the mixing of cultures, inspired by greek mythology and the

gargoyles from Reims Cathedral

Following the calendar, Some

Christmas activities

Illustration of a poem by Jacques Prévert:

“dans la nuit de l’hiver” In the night of winter

After Christmas, we used various techniques to

describe the universe of queens and kings, we also did some puppets for the « Elmer and Walter in the kingdom of Queens and Kings »   puppet show

We went to see a show at the « Cirque Educatif » of Reims which

is almost unique in France

We saw clowns, and an elephant.

We also develop artistic work from books connected with live  events such as the circus show

Cold and warm colours

Klee was born in Switzerland, In 1914, he visited Tunisia

with August Macke and Louis Moilliet and was impressed by the quality of the light there, Klee worked with

many different types of media – oil paint, watercolor, ink,

and more. They often have a fragile child-like quality to them, and are usually on a

small scale. They frequently allude to poetry, music and

dreams and sometimes include words or

musical notation.

After Paul Klee

Connecting abstrac art with the reality of Elmer

Elmer being transformed!

Another technique

with Stencils and blue

inks

Elephants with the younger ones. The shapes have been prepared with grey paper, the

children painted the backgrounds with inks and rollers and put stickers on the stools

Karel Appel (born April 25, 1921) is a Dutch painter,

born in Amsterdam. He was influenced by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and

Jean Dubuffet; he joined CoBrA in 1948.

In 1950 he moved to Paris and then developed his international reputation travelling to Mexico, the

USA, Yugoslavia and Brazil. He is particularly noted for

his mural work and now lives between New York and

Florence.

After Karel Appel

Another portrait

from Karel Appel

Cutting and sticking coloured papers

Painted wood sculptures by Karel Appel