This weeks open ended art project theme is “Matisse”.  It’s a new thing; Open Ended Art will feature a specific artist once a month.  We read “When Pig-Asso met Moo-Tisse” and “Drawing with Scissors” as well as checking out some Matisse art on the internet to get familiar with his work.

I really loved this project. I’ve always liked Matisse anyway (which is why we had those books on hand already!), and his collage work I always thought was especially stunning.

^^ THIS is how almost all of my progress shots came out this week.  Yay?

To get started, and show him a bit about the collage work, I first cut a bunch of “matisse inspired” shapes and let him do a collage with those. 

I realize that I am biased, but didn’t he do an amazing job?  I didn’t cut the pieces with any kind of picture in mind at all.  And here we have “Mommy Watches Two Baby Birds”.  I really love how this one came out.

After that, I handed over paper and scissors and asked him to make his own shapes for another collage work.  We discussed “organic” shapes, and how Matisse used very few straight lines. 

These are the *only* process shots that aren’t all screwed up, and you can’t see very much.  Sigh!  He cut a lot of long wavy strips, glued several together in bunches, and then attached the mini-collages to the paper.

For more great open ended art projects, check out the linkie at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms!

Posted by Kristen in Art Stuff (open ended art, stART, and Art Literacy), Brain Dump, Crafting