The kids got arty with George Rodrigue!

We took Red Ted Art’s Kids Get Arty challenge and we got arty! I’m not talking about our usual arts and crafts stuff, I mean really arty. We were totally up for this one! I brought the proper artist easel in from the garage even. As for our inspiration, we looked no further than our new puppy (who will be with us in late July). I have been wanting the girls to make paintings of our future dog, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. In our hunt for an amazing artist to learn about we landed on George Rodrigue. You are probably familiar with his series of works titled Blue Dogs. This American artist’s paintings of a blue dog seemed like the perfect jumping off point for the girls. 

After looking at some examples of Rodrigue’s artwork we discussed the fact that his work is more abstract and two dimensional than some other classic artists like Renoir and Manet. We actually found many examples of dogs found in famous paintings. The history of dogs in artwork is fascinating. This is a great link with further information. Rodrigue’s use of colour really appealed to my girls. 

We started by thinking of how a piece of art is constructed. The use of background and foreground in a composition.

And began working on canvas with acrylic paints. They used proper paint brushes and were thrilled to work with mommy’s “big” easel.

The finished products were gloriously colourful and creative. My youngest daughter was delighted with how her border terrier turned out “it looks just like a real border terrier, I can’t believe it!” My eldest daughter, who is more of a writer than a painter, took a more simplistic approach. Each are unique and each will hang with honour on their bedroom wall. 

This was a great opportunity to open up the discussion about art. In fact as my daughter was working on her sketches she was using an eraser we had picked up during our last trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario. It says “Art Matters”. She said “see mommy art does matter, just like the eraser says.” I cannot wait to take my girls back to the AGO to see the Pablo Picasso exhibit…it’s in the calendar!

We are linking up today’s post to Red Ted Art’s Kids Get Arty – Exploring the Great Artists link up. Be sure to head over and find out how many other bloggers are introducing the great artists to their children all over the world.