The past few weeks the K-6th grade students and I have been studying John Singer Sargent.  Sargent, being an incredible portrait artist, inspired me to ask the students to bring in photos of themselves doing something they love to do.  Children love sharing what they love to do and photos of themselves, so it seemed like a great way for them to relate to John Singer Sargent.  They learned about basic facial shape, form and proportion(s) as they made self portraits like Mr. Sargent did and captured the essence of who they were on paper to share with others.  We also used this photo the next week in a special Valentine to give to someone they love.  Here is what we learned and what we did:



John Singer Sargent  (1856-19250)

John Singer Sargent’s parents were Americans who moved to Italy after their first child, who was born in America, passed away.  John’s father was a physician, and John was born, after their move, in Florence, Italy.  He was basically home-schooled, although it wasn’t called that then; sources said he had "no formal education," his parents taught him at home.  He was fluent in Italian, German, French and English.  He also was an accomplished pianist as well as an amazing artist. 

Mainly a portrait artist throughout his career, he left behind at least 900 oil paintings and 2,000 watercolors.  In 1907, he pretty much retired from doing portraits and enjoyed painting landscapes and other genre.  Some of the many portraits he painted were of wealthy patrons and famous people including President Woodrow Wilson, President Theodore Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller, and the writer Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc.) shown below.  He traveled extensively in his latter years, and one of his trips was to Florida where he created a treasure of masterpieces.  One of the student’s favorites was entitled “Muddy Alligators,” watercolor.  Photos of some of these beautiful paintings are included below to help you review and maybe mom and dad might be interested as well!

OUR FUN PROJECTS:

Self Portaits - Over the last two weeks, the K-6^th grade Art of Florida students studied Mr. Sargent.  They brought in photos of themselves doing something they enjoyed doing and made a self portrait, just like Mr. Sargent did. Sargent's best portraits reveal the individuality and personality of the sitters.  So that is what we did, too.  I think the students did a fine job portraying themselves and what they love to do!

 Peek-a-Boo Valentines - Using the photo of themselves the students brought in last week which they drew their self portrait from, the students made "Peek-a-boo" Valentines for their loved ones.  The heart-shaped front of the  card was decorated and when opened revealed their photo inside.  Some of the students wanted to cut eye holes in the card like the sample I made so that the recipient could see their eyes from the photo inside, thus we called them “peek-a-boo” cards.  Some chose to just make regular Valentines.  They all had huge smiles as they thought about who they wanted to give them to.  There was much excitement in the art room at Circle Christian School!  We made them a week early so grandparents or loved ones could receive them in the mail in time.  

We REALLY had so much fun with our projects over the last two weeks.  Words cannot express it!  Even the littlest budding artists in the PreK-K class did a wonderful job on their self portraits!  In fact, they were so free and told so many stories about what they like to do, it was precious!  There is no time like this age to begin subtly introducing them about shape, form, space, color, line, value, and texture, all the elements of art!  If you ask your little one from my class to sing the color wheel song for you sometime you will be tickled.  Through it, they should already know the primary colors, secondary colors, complimentary colors and analogous colors, just from singing our little happy art song.  Isn't that wonderful?

Here are some of the paintings of Mr. Sargent’s we observed and talked about in class:

"Self Portrait"                "John D. Rockefeller"       "Madame X"             "Muddy Alligators"

          Here are photos of the student’s artwork and my sample(s) done in class using pencils and markers.  I like to give them demos and samples of what I expect or how to do the project we are working on.  The students are so cute as they comment on my work; they are my biggest fans and I am theirs!  I always tell the students we are all growing in our skills, and the only difference between me and them is that I just have more failed artwork than they do!  

        One day we will all be like John Singer Sargent if we just keep practicing.   I also read a book to some of my classes entitled "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" by Hugh Brewster that is a story of a painting by Sargent.  As I was reading the story, some of the students noticed that it took Sargent one and a half years to paint that one painting!  He kept scraping it down and starting over and reworking until he was happy with it.  So keep on keeping on everyone!  Enjoy the big smiles found in this artwork, and until next time...be blessed!  See you soon!