Thursday 6 March 2014

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)
http://highhillhomeschool.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/entertaining-and-educational-art-masters.html

20 comments:

  1. I like the dress, too -- what's to stop you from wearing something like that NOW? :-) Thanks for linking with Collage Friday!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by, Mary. :-) I guess I'm just feeling a little bit conservative these days when it comes to clothes. I might just wear something like this for the summer!

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  2. Fun project - great idea to find a person already in pose from a magazine, and work the patterns within that.

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    1. Thank you, Marie. I happened to have a set of patterned papers available, so that gave me an idea to do a collage rather than paint the patterns out.

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  3. I actually really like the proportions of the body in Tiger's picture! Klimt always takes me back to uni, where everyone's walls seemed to be adorned with his prints. But I expect there is a lot more to his work than I've seen. Thanks for sharing - I think I will use this as a collage stimulus too :-)

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    1. Thanks, Lucinda. Klimt's work has been very fashionable for a long time, and they were very progressive for his time. I'm not certain that they appeal to me as much as the works of other artists (e.g. Edvard Munch) we've studied, but there's no denying that his works are very unique indeed. :-)

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  4. That is a crazy-cool project!

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    1. Thank you, Nichole. Glad you've stopped by! :-)

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  5. Neat project idea! We haven't studied Klimt yet but I'll keep this idea in mind. I love to find new project ideas.

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    1. Thank you for stopping by, Tonia. I'm glad you find this project interesting. Hope you'll have fun with it at some point! :-)

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  6. It's very cool that you found ways to teach your son about this artist without having to dive into the crazy parts. He certainly has an interesting style. I think Tiger did a great job on the dress. That's a very creative way to do art.

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    1. Thank you for your kind word, Kay. :-) Klimt's style is indeed too interesting to pass. I'm glad homeschooling gives me the flexibility to focus on the artistic style rather than the lifestyle of the artist.

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  7. A fashion designer in making, it is really very good!

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  8. Wow- what a coo project!!

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  9. What a fun project. I've been saving magazines to use for collages, but we haven't gotten to them yet. You're inspiring me again!

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    1. Glad to be of help, Julie. :-) I hope you have fun with your collage soon!

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  10. This is seriously cool! I love Tiger's collage, it's really, really good!

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    1. Thank you, Claire. I'll pass on your compliments to Tiger. He'll be very encouraged by these wonderful feedback. :-)

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