Kevin Collier

We'll get back to the American Regionalists on Monday. Today I want to share a great website with you instead.

Kevin Collier, an author and illustrator of children's books, has begun a blog that teaches you how to draw. It's really fantastic. Every post is a video teaching you to draw something new. You can learn to draw a whale, a mouse, and several other animals and objects. I especially like the video about how to draw glass.

Also, check out the art from some of his books (here and here).

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

23038 / 50000 words. 46% done!

Grant Wood

Yesterday you learned about Regionalism. Grant Wood was a Realist painter who is most famous for his paintings of the American Midwest, like American Gothic.

Wood was born in 1891 in Iowa. His father was a farmer and his mother was a teacher. After high school, he moved to Minnesota to learn how to work with wood and metal.

The next year, Wood decided to become a teacher. He studied for his teaching certificate at the University of Iowa. He also studied architecture and he painted.

In 1916, Wood went to the Art Institute of Chicago to study art.

He never finished any of his studies, but in 1919 he earned his teaching credentials by teaching in a school in Iowa. He taught middle school and high school art for 6 years and traveled to Europe during the summers. During these trips, Wood studied many European artists. It was during his travels that Wood learned to paint the ordinary as something special.

Wood set up his own studio in Iowa and began painting scenes of the American Midwest. He taught art classes at his studio. He also supported other local artists, musicians, and actors. He even let a local acting group put on performances in his studio.

Wood left his studio and began teaching art at the University of Iowa. Even though Grant Wood was a famous and well-liked artist at the time, many other teachers at the University of Iowa were upset that he hadn’t finished his own college education.

Grant eventually left the University of Iowa. He found a new studio and painted until his death in 1942.

Check out the Iowa state quarter that came out in 2004. Though Grant Wood had been dead for 62 years when the quarter was released, Iowa decided to use one of his designs on the back.

If you want to click through a lot of Grant Wood's art, check out this site which includes 74 of his paintings Notice how they look just a little too simple to be real. It’s almost like a dream version of the American Midwest.

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

21334 / 50000 words. 43% done!

American Regionalism

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, many Americans had a difficult time making enough money live. A lot of people lost money when the stock market crashed and many people were fired from their jobs. At this time, people were not very hopeful about the future.

The Regionalist art movement came about at the end of the 1920s. Instead of painting the world as dark, dirty, and hopeless, Regionalists painted hopeful scenes of the American Midwest. The paintings often showed hard working people who were making it through the depression. They gave people hope that the future would be better.

In Europe, abstract art was becoming popular at this time. Regionalists painted more realistic paintings instead. However, Regionalists cared more that the objects in their paintings were easy to recognize than that their paintings looked exactly like what could be seen in real life.

Regionalism fell out of popularity in the mid-1940s.

In the next few days, I’ll post about some of the better known Regionalists, beginning tomorrow with Grant Wood.

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

20048 / 50000 words. 40% done!
It was a slow day, but a little
progress is better than no progress.

Create Your Own Shimmer Painting

This project is a lot of fun and the result is an eye-catching, shimmery masterpiece. You actually don’t need any paint to create this “painting.”

Supplies Needed:

Aluminum Foil
Water
Cup
White Glue
Paintbrush
Tissue Paper
Glitter
Sequins
Cover your workspace. Ask an adult to cut a piece of aluminum foil for you. Pour a little water into your cup and add about the same amount of glue. Mix the glue and water together. You don’t need a lot of this mixture.

Use your paintbrush to spread a little of the glue mixture across a section of your aluminum foil. Tear off a strip of tissue paper and lay it over the glue. Press it down with your fingers.

Continue to paint on the glue and add strips of tissue paper until you’re happy with your artwork.
Spread another thin layer of the glue mixture over the tissue paper. Sprinkle glitter onto the “painting.”

You may also choose to add sequins to your masterpiece. You’ll want to use glue rather than the glue mixture to stick on the sequins.
Enjoy!

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

19246 / 50000 words. 38% done!

Look What I Did with a Leaf! by Morteza E. Sohi

Welcome to Fantastic Nonfiction Friday!

Last fall, when the leaves began to change colors, I posted about Lois Ehlert’s Leaf Man and I showed you how to create your own leaf man. I also showed you how to press leaves between wax paper and suggested a few ways to use those pressed leaves.

Today’s book teaches you how to make animals out of leaves. It does a much better job than I could ever do. I recommend it highly.

Morteza E. Sohi’s Look What I Did with a Leaf does more than just show you how to create an elephant, a peacock, a fox, a frog, a rooster, and many more animals using leaves. This book also teaches about the life cycle of a leaf and includes a field guide to many types of leaves that are found throughout the United States.

When learning about the life cycle of a leaf, what kid wouldn’t love taking a leaf walk and creating his or her own leaf animal?

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12073 / 50000 words. 24% done!
I didn't write a single word yesterday...
But I'm still ahead of schedule going
into the second weekend!