Create Your Own Rousseau Jungle

As you read yesterday, Henri Rousseau most liked to paint jungle scenes even though he had never been to a jungle or seen most of the animals up close. Rousseau’s jungles are highly regarded today. You can make your own jungle scene just like Rousseau, regardless of whether you’ve seen a jungle yourself.

Supplies Needed:

Construction paper in green and blue
Magazines (such as landscaping, bird watching, and travel magazines)
Glue stick
Scissors

Gather your materials. Flip through your magazines and cut out pictures of trees, plants, and animals that you think you might find in a jungle. Be sure to get permission before you cut any magazines. Look at some of Rousseau’s paintings, like the ones in this large Rousseau gallery, for inspiration.

Tear a strip of green construction paper to create grass for your jungle. Glue it to the bottom of the blue sheet of paper (the sky).

Arrange your cut out trees and foliage, then add your animals. When you have created a jungle scene of your liking, glue down the magazine cutouts.

If you prefer to create a jungle that doesn’t require any materials, make your own Rousseau jungle online at the National Gallery of Art Kids page. Please note that you will need Adobe Shockwave Player to create an online jungle. It is a quick download but again, get permission before you download anything.



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Henri Rousseau

Henri Rousseau was a French painter, born in 1844. He wanted desperately to belong within the ranks of the traditional French Academy painters but it was not to be.

Rousseau was born to a poor family. His father’s debts even caused the family to lose their home at one point. Rousseau served in the army for four years before going on to become a customs officer at the edge of Paris. He worked until he was 49, painting on the weekends, until he could retire and focus fully on his art. He taught painting lessons, performed as a street musician, and did other odd tasks to earn enough money to live as he painted.

He was completely self-taught and this showed in his work. He wanted to paint flawless, realistic works but a naivety, a simplicity, persisted that he couldn’t shake. The traditionalist painters mocked him but he remained confident in his talent.
Rousseau’s favorite subject was the jungle but he never actually saw a jungle. He based his scenery on the botanical gardens in Paris and the animals were drawn from guide books and zoo pamphlets. Some of his subjects he never saw in three dimensions so his paintings have a flat look to them. Also, Rousseau sometimes grouped together animals that would never be seen together in nature. In one painting, the bananas hang upside down from a tree.

There were some who liked Rousseau’s paintings. For example, Picasso saw one of Rousseau’s paintings being sold on the street as a junk canvas that could be painted over by a serious artist. Picasso bought the painting and then went to meet this ingenious artist.
After his death in 1910, Rousseau began to gain popularity and now his canvases hang in museums around the world.

[The paintings shown above are The Sleeping Gypsy, Surprised!, and Tropical Forest with Monkeys.]

EDITED TO ADD: Create Your Own Rousseau Jungle

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How We See Color

I have gone far too long without posting about how we see color. Color is an important aspect of many forms of art including paintings, sculpture, drawings, and collage. Imagine a painting of a fruit bowl in which the apple is orange, the grapefruit is turquoise, and the orange is burnt sienna. How would you know which piece of fruit was which?

A blob of green paint is not itself green. Sound confusing? We see objects because there is light (from the sun or the moon or from light bulbs) to illuminate them. This is true of color as well. That blob of green paint looks green because it soaks up all the light waves except the ones that ones that are the right length to look green.

Have you ever hung a prism in a window on a sunny day and seen little rainbows bounce on the walls? The prism filters the white light by slowing down the waves and reflecting them in different directions. Some waves are slowed more than others. The slowest (longest) waves look red and the fastest (shortest) waves look violet. That blob of green paint acts kind of like the prism except that instead of releasing all the waves, it absorbs some. The make up of that paint allows it to reflect the green waves and absorb all the others.

Because it is light that allows us to see color, our eyes will blend red with blue if small dots of each color are placed close together. This is the idea that Georges Seurat used when he experimented with pointillism.

Also of possible interest: Paint Your Own Pointillist Picture

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Paint Your Own Pointillist Picture

On Thursday and Friday you learned about Georges Seurat, the pointillist master responsible for Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte as well as Bathers at Asnieres. Today, try your hand at painting in Seurat’s style.

It is simple to create your own pointillist painting but be warned: this will take some time. This is not a particularly original project but I think it is an effect one. I have not seen it elsewhere adapted for younger kids but they can have fun with pointillism, too.

If you are working with a group of children, I recommend cutting a strip of paper from a roll and having the kids work together to create a simple landscape. This will make the painting less tedious and encourage teamwork. With really young children, use finger paints and have the kids dab the paint on with their fingertips.

Supplies Needed:

Paper
Paints
Pencils

Gather your materials. Cover your workspace with newspaper or a drop cloth.

Decide what you want to paint. It is best to choose a simple image like a landscape or seascape. I would also suggest that you start small. Use standard-size computer paper to start. Outline your picture in pencil.

Any type of paint will do but I recommend using a non-toxic variety. Use the eraser end of a pencil to dab the paint onto your paper. Use a different pencil for each color or wash the eraser between uses. Be aware that if you let the paint sit on the eraser for too long it will not wash off. You should have some back-ups ready in case.

When applying the paint, experiment with dabbing blue next to yellow instead of mixing green straight away, or red next to blue for purple. How well does it work? How far away do you have stand for the colors to blend?

When you’ve finished, let your painting dry. Hang and enjoy.

For a variation, try painting on blank cards for a handmade birthday greeting. Maybe use your newly learned pointillist technique to paint a stylized version of the birthday boy or girl. You could also paint small designs on squares of cardstock to use as gift tags.

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Georges Seurat, Part 2

Are you feeling well rested? Good! I have plenty more information to share with you about Georges Seurat and Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. If you missed yesterday’s post, go read it before you read on. Just to make things easier, I re-posted La Grande Jatte below so you won’t have to keep flipping between posts.
And now, back to Seurat’s biography, where we left off yesterday. In 1883, and it took all of 1883, Seurat painted his first large masterpiece, Bathing at Asnieres, shown below. The Paris Salon didn’t like it, though, and wouldn’t let Seurat show it at their exhibition. As you can imagine, this frustrated Seurat and he and other artists formed their own group, the Societe des Artistes Independants.
In 1884 he began his best known piece, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (shown at the beginning of this post). He finally finished it in 1886, two years later. This painting is now on display at the Art Institute of Chicago and has been since 1926. It is a massive piece of about 10 feet wide by 6 feet tall and is worth the trip. If you do get the chance to see the painting up close, notice that there is a shadow in the distant trees that looks like someone lurking. Also look closely at the skirt of the woman with the monkey. In person, you can see that Seurat made the skirt larger after the painting was finished. This painting is a great example of why it’s important and preferable to view original paintings than photos of paintings on glossy pages.

Incidentally, the Art Institute of Chicago is offering free admission to its permanent collection during February 2008. Two excellent exhibitions will be opening in February, Edward Hopper, who painted the famous Nighthawks (shown below), and Winslow Homer, on whom I’ve already posted. If you’re interested in Winslow Homer don’t forget to check out the review I posted on Anna Kirwan’s Of Flowers and Shadows. (If you visit, you will have to pay for the special exhibitions, but not the permanent collection which includes La Grande Jatte.)

Seurat lived a short life which ended in 1891 when he was just 31 years old. He had two sons, one of whom was born after Seurat’s death. Nothing is known of the children.

EDITED TO ADD: Paint Your Own Pointillist Picture

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