John James Audubon (1785 – 1851) The Blue Jay and Other Bird Prints

1820-1826
The Blue Jay

John J. Audubon is a very interesting artist to study for his life and works cross many fields for he was an artist, a naturalist and a scientist of birds (ornithologist). In our studies, it even crosses with history, for I find it both interesting and helpful to look at artists in context of what else is going on at the time. We found this beautiful book, The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon an excellent biography of this artist.

He was born in France in 1785, but in 1803, his father obtained a false passport so that Audubon could go to the United States to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic Wars. Audubon set about to study American birds, determined to illustrate his findings in a more realistic manner than most artists did at the time.

It is hard then to study Audubon's bird prints without studying birds as well. We chose a bird to study first, the blue jay and I made copies from Audubon's Birds of America Coloring Book for them to paint. We also read about the bird from The Burgess Bird Book. 

All of this easily led into a nature study of the Blue Jay.  Nature for the Very Young has wonderful sketches of

the Blue Jay in the various stages of its life, so I thought I would take this opportunity to teach them that birds look different in the various stages of their life. 

Young children, too, sometimes think that the color of the egg and the color of the bird should be the same or that all eggs are white like the eggs they get from the store. The Blue jay has a cream colored egg with brown spots. 

Quentin
painting a coloring page of a Blue Jay
April 2009

"John Audubon said that as soon as he began waling and talking, his father constantly pointed out objects in nature. His father would bring him birds and flowers and show him details such as the birds' elegant movement, or the softness of the feathers, or how they showed fear or pleasure, or their perfect form. He would talk about their seasonal migrations, where they lived and how they would change. It was this early influence that excited Audubon and inspired him to make birds his life's work and think about the God who created them."

Charlotte Mason, volume 1 page 59

We will continue our study of Audubon's prints by picking other birds out of his Birds of America book and studying both the art prints and the birds themselves.A helpful resource for studying Audubon is this booklet of six of Audubon's prints. In it are postcard sized reproductions of his prints of the whooping crane, great blue heron, roseate spoonbill, American white pelican, wild turkey, and American flamingo.

The Tower of Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1527-1569)

We had a long look at all the windows and arches in this picture and how he uses line to give depth to the painting. We noted the shadow cast from the building on the right. We noted the horizon line.

Then we made another chalk pastels picture...

This time more in theme with this week than with Bruegel's picture.

Sparklers!

The Hunters in the Snow (January), Pieter Bruegel the Elder

I love this painting. Looking at the cool snow feels good about now, with temperatures in the 90's.

We looked at the painting's composition, perspective, the colors and the mood of the painting.

We compared this painting with the other's of Bruegel's that we have studied.

Because we are in the summer season, we decided to complete a decidedly summer picture instead of a winter scene. We made bubble pictures with chalk pastels.

More ideas for Bruegel Artist Study here.

The Peasant Wedding, 1567, Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Peasant Wedding, 1567, Pieter Bruegel the Elder

I just love this painting so much. To me, it has such a great feeling to it. We looked at the colors he used, the lines and how they draw the eyes of the viewer. We looked at how he viewed the life of the peasant.

We had so much fun last week making pictures with pastels, we decided to complete another one,
Queen Anne's Lace this time.

The Islamic Empires in the Renaissance

(Previous posts: Marco Polo's Travels Through Persia, The Mongols, India ) 

map from Story of the World III Activity Guide

During the Renaissance there were three areas that rose as powerful Islamic Empires. At the beginning of the 1500's, Persia (now called Iran) regained independence under the Safavid dynasty. Persia soon became one of the leading cultures of the world. Safavid Persia was continually under pressure from the west and the Turks in the east, until Abbas I (1571-1629) came into power and created a cultural renaissance in Persia.

The Ottomans were Muslim Turks who built a large empire, with Istanbul as its capital. During the 16th century, the Ottomans expanded their empire, seizing land in the Middle East, North Africa , Russia and Hungary. In the mid-1500's they threatened Europe by attacking Vienna, and also a sea battle near the Greek coast. They also battled the Persians.

The Moguls were Muslims from the area now called Afghanistan. Like their ancestors, the Mongols, the Moguls were great warriors. Beginning in 1526, they began taking control of the land in India. They also built many beautiful buildings, the most famous being the Taj Mahal.

One of the things these Islamic cultures had in common was their love of beautiful designs. They loved tiled walls and floors and often make lovely patterns with the tiles often repeating the patterns in tesselations.

After looking at some of these patterns, we got out our pattern blocks and played around with making designs.  We looked at how the shapes fit together to make it easy to tesselate them. The hexagon, if cut in half forms two trapezoids. If you cut out a equilateral triangle from the end of a trapezoid, it forms a rhombus.

Quentin and I cut out these shapes in colored paper...

and James used these shapes to form a tesselation from a wall from the Book of Kings (Shah-nameh). He found the shapes difficult to align and was a bit frustrated at times,

but I was very pleased with how it turned out.

Can you see the stars that formed in the background around the hexagons?

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,1508-12, Michelangelo (1475-1564), Part One: Creation of Adam

Michelangelo's paintings in the Sistine Chapel are so amazing, it is impossible to take it all in at once.

portion, Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo

I decided that we would look at just a portion of it this time, and this one I cropped down for modesty reasons. Even this portion is enough to examine to see the incredible power and beauty of his work.

Or, even this portion.

We also read some about the artist and put him on our timeline.

And for our art activity, we decided to do the old standard activity of painting under the table to get a sense of the difficult conditions under which he painted these incredible paintings.

They loved this activity so much they have spent the whole afternoon painting.

 James remarked that it was hard to do, but Quentin seemed to be inspired by it, completing picture after picture.

In fact, they are still there painting.

Quentin's Tomb of Jesus

Quentin's Calgary Hill

James' Inside Church

Quentin's Creation of Adam

Quentin's Lord over the Earth

Quentin's The King of Kings

Quentin's The Annunciation

James'

The older boys watched The Agony and the Ecstasy.

A Young Hare, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

A Young Hare

This is one of my very favorite pictures of all time. Not surprising for someone who loves rabbits.

There is so much to look at in this picture...contour...texture...color. (I love his signature, too.)
We particularly liked the picture, too, because it looks so much like our bunny.

I encouraged the older students to sketch pictures of hares.

Here is a sketch that Sam did today. Not the hare, of course, but another sketch.

Meanwhile the little boys enjoyed making more printing projects.

1,2,3...I Can Make Prints
On The Fold

Praying Hands, 1508, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Praying Hands, 1508
Brush and ink

For my older children, I encouraged them to draw hands, but it was a little too hard for Alex, so he ended up joining the younger kids with their projects.

James'

 For my younger children, we did another printing project...
Pressed on Patterns.

Self-Portraits, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Albrecht Durer {1471-1528}

This week we looked at Durer himself. We knew from last week that Durer was a master at woodcuts but we learned this week that he was a multi-talented man as he made watercolors, tempera on linen, pen and ink, and drypoint (type of intaglio) printing in addition to his woodcuts. He, therefore, was an accomplished  painter, printmaker, matematician, engraver and theorist from Nuremberg. Nuremberg was then an important and prosperous city, a centre for publishing and many luxury trades. It had strong links with Italy, especially Venice, a relatively short distance across the Alps. Dürer's godfather was Anton Koberge, a successful publisher in Germany, most famous for his publication of the Nuremberg Chronicle in 1493.

Self Portraits, 1500 & 1498

They added Durer on the history timeline and the older boys made a notebook page on him.

More resources about Durer here.

Rhinoceros, woodcut {1515}, Albrecht Durer {1471-1528}

Albrecht Durer {1471-1528}

 Today we began our study of Albrecht Durer with a look at his woodcut, Rhinoceros. Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller or brayer, leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

Rhinoceros, woodcut 1515

Rhinoceros, woodcut 1515

Look at all the texture he has created on this rhino! Thinking of how it was made just makes you appreciate this piece even more.

There are many relief printing projects students can do. Older students can use an actual linoleum block and carve it with lino knives. Kids Artists  and Sea Kettle Diaries have tutorials on how to make lovely block prints. Below are a sample of how they turn out on several mediums using this method.



at Kids Artist



Also, One Crafty Mumma has a tutorial on how to make stamps out of erasers.

 

For younger students, the classic potato prints can be done to show the method of chipping away what you don't want, leaving what you want to print.

To prepare the potatoes, wash them and then slice them in half through the widest part. The easiest way to make the raised part is to use a small cookie cutter and push it into the cut part of the potato until it is all the way in. Pull it out and then, using a knife, cut away the part you do not want, leaving the part you do want raised. If you child is old enough to have good knife skills, then you can give him a butter knife and let him cut the potato parts away. Otherwise, you can do that part (with a regular knife).

Another option is to draw on the potato with a pencil whatever design you wish and then cut away the parts you don't want as above. Remember, though, that the less complicated the print is, the better.

Don't forget, too, that you can make these prints on all kinds of surfaces. You can use fabric paint, and make the potato prints on fabric.



For potato printing, it is best to stick with simple shapes.



You can use the shapes to make interesting designs.