Fashionably Klimt

On the last day of 2013, Tiger and I visited the National Gallery to see The Portrait in Vienna 1900 exhibition.

Although it was not strictly a solo exhibition of Gustav Klimt's, I used that visit as a launch pad for us to learn more about Klimt and his work.

There isn't much information on Klimt for children, probably because the erotic nature of his most famous late period of work and his rather promiscuous personal life don't lend themselves to be deemed suitable material for young children to study.  However, I was inspired by the non-erotic portraits we saw at the exhibition to study about this man's unique artistic style and its influence on modern day fashion and design.

We used postcards and prints of Klimt's work for our inspiration, to understand his use of contrasting background and colours.

 

Then we proceeded to work.

Below is Tiger's work process for this project:

1. We looked through a few magazines for Tiger to choose a pose which he liked.  Once he decided which pose he liked, he cut out the head and limbs of the model from the page
2. The cut-outs were carefully glued onto a pre-selected piece of construction paper.
3. Tiger drew the outline of the clothing on paper.
4. Then he selected the patterned papers that he wanted to use.
5. We looked at Klimt's prints again and talked about the interweaving patterns on his paintings.  This discussion made Tiger understand that he should think about variations in how he cut the patterned papers.
6. The cut-out patterns were arranged onto the paper, within the outline that Tiger had drawn.  Once he was happy with how the patterned papers were arranged, he glued each piece on carefully, making further adjustments to the way each piece was cut accordingly.

Other than the proportion of the human body being really out of whack, I think the dress is really quite funky.  I would probably wear a dress with such a loud pattern if I were 20 years younger.


This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 3/4/14
2. Virtual Refrigerator Blog Hop 
3. Entertaining and Educational - Quotes and Strewing
4. Collage Friday - We All Need Encouragement
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where I Got Up Early
6. The Homeschool Mother's Journal (3/8/14)