Art Masters: Picasso

I admire teachers so much! Although I graduated from college with an English degree, I never wanted to teach. Just couldn't do it. Don't even get me started on the sad state of public education in Arizona! Our state spends less per student than in any other state in the nation! Yikes!

Anyway, I digress... I volunteer in Corey's classroom every other week and teach Art Masters once a month in Ashlyn's. The kids actually cheer when I walk in the room to teach about art. I showslides of an artist's work, give a short biography and then we do an art project based on one of their most famous works.

I especially loved teaching about Picasso. It's interesting to me that most of these artists

have very X-rated and/or tortured personal lives, so I try not to go into too much detail

(or I completely omit a lot). These kids are smart, though. There's usually one who

raises a hand and asks me, "So how did he DIE?" or "I heard he was crazy..."

I taught 2 lessons on Picasso because I didn't want to teach about Edgar Degas and his ballerinas (!) The first was based on "Three Musicians" and "Guitar" (right). Ashlyn loved using scraps of paper to create a guitar. I snapped a picture of all the finished projects (above).

I do love the Picasso quote:

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

Last month I taught a lesson on artists' portraits. It was fun to go back through the artists we've already studied this year to see how they portrayed themselves through art. I love Edvard Munch's "Self-Portrait with Skeleton Arm." (Click HERE) Since Picasso painted hundreds of portraits of his mistress Dora Maar, I chose a close up of one of my favorites for the art project (above). I love how it's both a profile and forward-facing portrait and the colors are great! It was so interesting that many of the kids were a little upset and frustrated in drawing themselves so distorted. I do think it really got them out of their box and these drawings were some of my favorite!

Next month: "Whistler's Mother" by James McNeill Whistler.