kandinksy concentric circles

Nov 16, 2011

Color is a power that directly influences the soul…color is the keyboard…the artist is the hand that plays.

We are using our Art Treasury book to study artists and on Monday we studied Vassily Kandinksy. We learned that he was born in Russia in 1866 into a musical family. He began his career as a lawyer and in his thirties he started painting. He loved to study how colors blend together and how they contrast with each other. He believed colors expressed emotions and feelings in the same way as music and he felt the effect of colors so strongly that just looking at them caused him to hear musical sounds.

Since we are surrounded by music in this house, we talked about that idea for a while, and everyone agreed they had never heard music when looking at colors. Maybe we just aren’t artsy enough?

Keziah’s circles

One thing I hope they learn from this focus on artists is that each of us is an artist and we all have a message to share with the world in our own unique way. I hope they experience a wide variety of styles and learn that the best way to get their message out is to be true to themselves.

Fisher’s circles

Annesley’s circles

We have spent more time painting in the last few days than we have in months. Its something all three of the younger ones can do together and it is so fun everyone is excited about getting the paints out the next day. I can already see I need some oil pastels and watercolors for the two younger ones because sharing Keziah’s self-purchased ones isn’t working out as well as I hoped. She guards them a little too carefully and the two little ones don’t feel as free to explore as I would like because they are so worried about breaking or wasting her supplies. When they use normal crayons and crayola watercolors their results aren’t what they want and they are no where near as vibrant, so I need to get them their own and then not freak out if they get broken.

This is good for me. It is good for my brain to get out of the heavier academics and turn on the creative side for a few weeks.