Artist Study ~ Leonardo da Vinci (Making Portraits)

I am rebooting our Artist Study and we’re starting with portraits.  Now this project was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci. See our previous activities with Leonardo da Vinci here.

To know more about this genius artist and for inspiration, we first examine his life. We used this amazing book from the library, Levelled Biographies: Leonardo da Vinci[aff. link].  We enjoyed the book, and Mavi loved learning about Leonardo, not just as an artist but as a scientist as well. The book is appropriate for kids as it has a simple way of telling a biography and has lots of pictures in it.

Aside from learning about Leonardo, we also talked about portraits. I showed Mavi random samples in the web.  Then I took some photos of him outdoor to demonstrate what’s the difference between a portrait and an ordinary picture.  (You can also do this with your kids!) After which, we started making our portraits.  We used the DSS lesson for  the tutorial and some inspirations.

To create portraits, we used two mediums:  oil pastel and tempera paint.  Mavi wanted to use oil pastels (I never liked them!) as this is what they mostly use in school. So I guess he’s quite confident with it.

As you can see I also tried creating my portrait using the pastel but the black which I used for the outline started to mess with my peach coloured face! I just have to stop because my portrait is starting to look messy.

Now this is Mavi’s portrait made from oil pastel. He’s so happy with his work :D 

Second try, we used tempera paints.  I like using paints! Easier to handle and less messy. 

And this is our finished product :) 

Tempera paints, oil pastels and other art materials can be purchased through Amazon, Target or any craft store available.

Mavi pointed out he doesn’t know how to make a nose and a mouth … so we’ll he'll be practising more.

Now this is an activity that you can easily do with your kids.  You can use any medium available, pencil, crayons or watercolour.  Discuss what is a portrait and what do they imagine to be in that portrait.  You can also talk about the back of your portrait, whether they wanted to be indoor or in the park, under the sun, the beach etc.

Like my post? More activities here!

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Artist Study ~ Leonardo da Vinci [2] (PRINTABLE)

We’re done learning about the life and works of da Vinci, it’s time to have our own version of his works.

Starting with Mona Lisa.  We talked about the colors used of da Vinci and of what it is to paint a portrait.For his own rendition, he picked colors green (for the trees on the background), orange (background), purple for the color of the dress and black.  He draw the face first as a guide then applied paints.

And of course, not forgetting the famous smile :)

And here’s my son’s Mona Lisa

And my son didn’t stop there, he wanted to paint The Last Supper as well.  As I mentioned previously, this is his favorite painting of da Vinci.

 

 

And here’s what it looks like after he added paints :)

In line with our study I created art cards of da Vinci’s works that we used as 3 part cards.  You can download get it here.  I advice you should read the first part of this post to learn how to use the cards.

Happy Sunday!

 

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Artist Study ~ Leonardo da Vinci [1] (PRINTABLES)

For the past week, we’ve been looking at the works of Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo is a painter, inventor, scientist, sculptor... and just about anything!  He writes from right to left because he is left handed.  And his notes are written in mostly mirror-image for secrecy of his works.

To supplement our study, I made art cards.  Through Google Image, I selected famous da Vinci’s artworks/writings and put them in cards.  We discussed each work, what he likes and doesn’t like about it, talk about his observations and by end of it he selected his favorite:  The Last Supper. 

While we do this, there were a few things that my son needed me to discuss like because he keeps on asking why (like, why is it called The Last Supper).

If you’re interested with the cards, you can download it here. You can print it twice to use as 3-part cards (Montessori approach).

I also talked about the museums that houses some of da Vinci’s works.  And he was surprise that we’ve been those museums and has in fact come face to face with Mona Lisa.

Here’s a picture taken at the Louvre, we went here when Mavi was 2 years old.  Mona Lisa was impressive, small and so dark.  I really wonder what’s the hype.  Since it’s barricaded it’s impossible to see the magic of da Vinci’s hand by just looking from afar :(

We also went to Vatican Museum when Mavi turned 1.  They house some of da Vinci’s works too.

And here’s Florence, Italy... the birthplace of da Vinci! This is the exterior of Uffizi Gallery, they have a room dedicated to da Vinci’s works. A

 

And there goes the first part of our study.  Next post would be my son’s paintings of his favorite da Vinci works :)

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