Manet: Still LIfe and Portraits

We did our usual study at home using postcards and printouts of a few of Manet's work as well as looking through the collection here.

Once again, we relied on documentaries to (1) tell us more about the man himself (caution: both clips contain artistic nudity):

and (2) understand one of his masterpieces a little bit better:

After watching the documentaries, we decided to set up a simple still life.  Tiger first did an observational sketch in pencil:

We melted broken crayon pieces that we have saved over the years in a muffin tin, and Tiger used a Q-tip to apply the melted crayons on his sketch.  He had to work fast as the crayons solidified very quickly.

After this step, Tiger switched to using tempera paint to complete the background of his work:

Here is Tiger's masterpiece:

I often tag along in Tiger's activities, especially in art, so I did a sketch using ballpoint pen then painted it in watercolour.  Still life is more difficult than I had imagined.

Then we went to see the Manet exhibition and attended a portraiture workshop at the Royal Academy of Arts.

After going around the exhibition looking at Manet's masterly brush strokes, we headed to the workshop room to participate in a preliminary exercise to help us loosen up and to understand how brush strokes work.  We were each given three brushes of varying sizes and a black-and-white copy of Manet's work.

We were to use only black acrylic paint to copy the still life photo in 5 minutes.   No prelimiary sketches; paint directly with the brushes.  It was hard!

Tiger's version

My version

Next we repeated the exercise using black and white acrylic paint.  Again in 5 minutes.

Tiger's version

My version

Finally, we were given 8 minutes to paint a portrait of someone famous, using black, white and blue paint.  We were given photos of five famous people to choose from.  Tiger chose pirates:

Here is his interpretation of the man on the left in the photo above:

I chose a local politician's glamourous wife.  I was just building up my painting to a recognisable stage when the 8 minutes were up.  Oh well.

This post is linked up to:
1) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Winter 
2) Hearts for Home Blog Hop #5
3) Homeschool Mother's Journal: February 22, 2013
4) Hobbies and Handicrafts - Feb 22
5) Collage Friday - Family, History, and More
6) TGIF Linky Party #64
7) It's a Wrap
8) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with the Busy Break Week
9) Share it Saturday - Feb 23
10) The Sunday Showcase - 2/23/13
11) Hip Homeschool Hop - 2/26/13
12) Virtual Refrigerator