Susan's Homeschool Blog

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Several years ago, my kids took an online art class, where each week we focused on a different famous artist. It was called Mixing with the Masters. We created three different works of art for each famous artist:

1. Da Vinci
2. Rembrandt
3. Monet
4. Van Gogh
5. Picasso
6. O’Keeffe

Well, now Alisha (the art instructor) has come up with Mixing with the Masters: Volume 2, including six more famous artists. We will be focusing on our favorite three artists in this series, but you are welcome to do all six. When you’re in high school, SAT preparation and essay writing take precedence over classical art. (Sniff…) Today I would like to show you the artwork we did when we studied Henri Matisse, who was a colorful artist.

Woman with a Hat Pastel Painting

The first work of art that we created was with oil pastel crayons. Alisha provides a template to make it easier to begin with the shape of the woman with a flamboyant hat. My daughter has a sense of humor and drew a Chiquita banana hat on top of this woman. You can click the picture to see the hat better. It’s the one in the middle: the woman with the pineapple, grapes, and bananas.

It seems like Matisse just randomly splashed color around. The style of art reminds me of Picasso. Even the background of the picture has disjointed colors like a modern art stained glass window. The black outlines help to define the shape of the woman to distinguish her from the background of the piece.

I love how Alisha gives background information about each artist, why they painted the way they did, and whether they fit into the art culture of the time period. It’s really a brief study of history as well as a study of classical art techniques.

Goldfish Gouache Painting

Alisha introduced us to gouache painting, which is similar to watercolors but with more intense pigments. I like stronger, bolder colors anyway, so this was fun to do. The goldfish are in a bowl on top of a table surrounded by plants outside on a patio.

Once again, the black color defines the shape of the table and makes a good background for the fishbowl. I like how the goldfish are reflected on the top of the water.

You can print out a picture of the original artwork from Alisha’s course, so that you can see the colors that Matisse used in the painting. You don’t have to paint it all in one day. We listened to Billy Joel while painting this picture. My son Nathaniel chose to play “The Piano Man” in his last piano recital, and he was able to listen carefully to the song while painting this fishbowl. Art and music go together, and it puts us in a good mood for painting, not that the song has anything to do with fish.

Sorrows of the King Drawing with Scissors

Alisha provides a template that you can print out with the shapes of this colorful collage of a Biblical scene of David playing the harp for King Saul. My son chose to make the “frog man” on the left out of camouflage paper. You can see for yourself (clicking on the picture below, third piece) whether the “frog man” has disappeared. My daughter chose girly pink flower paper for part of the background. You can play with different colors and textures if you want.

For each layer that you add to this collage, you will need to use Mod Podge. It’s pretty messy, so make sure to use newspaper under your work. We also used old paintbrushes from when the kids were toddlers, so that they could throw the brushes away when they were finished with the project.

We enjoyed doing these colorful projects for this famous artist. If you would like to grab this set of classes for your own kids, you can get them here. Stay tuned for the next artist in our series!