A couple of weeks ago, I took the girls to see this exhibition:

The girls (grades 5-8, 9-12 years) from Carncot school had been to the Monet & the Impressionists Exhibition earlier in the year.

They also visited the Wellington Botanic Gardens to photograph water lilies to help them in their own artwork.  The girls had studied the effects of light on the water lilies and used Monet's paintings as inspiration for their own beautiful paintings.  The girls had started with charcoal & white paint, then progressed on to coloured pastel and oil paintings, all inspired by Monet's water lilies.

The paintings were absolutely beautiful and this was accentuated by the presentation.  The paintings were hung in groups creating a striking display of all Monet's favourite colours - purples, pinks & blues.  The coloured pastel water lilies were hung only at the top edge, so that they represented the ripples of the water.

The girls also made clay water lilies, which were lovely to look at in 3-D.

The girls had kept a scrapbook of the entire project, embellished with origami water lilies and full of beautiful ideas & commentaries on their art adventure.  They had designed their own brochure and came up with the name for the exhibition.

We had missed the official public exhibition, but I rang the principal and she graciously arranged for us to come and view it.

I was so grateful to be able to visit this exhibition with my children, and it has certainly given me lots of new ideas for art and an even greater appreciation for Monet's paintings - and ultimately, God's amazing creation!

The Carncot girls had produced a calendar featuring their work.  Here are some examples:

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Well, we finally made it to the Monet and the Impressionists exhibition at our national museum in Wellington, Te Papa.  We really enjoyed the exhibition, which included paintings by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Corot and Degas, along with a couple of sculptures by Degas.  There was a short film of Monet painting in his studio and some large black and white photos of him in his garden by the water lily pond.  It is amazing to see these paintings in real life.  Some of them were much larger than we expected, others were smaller.  Photos and sketching were not allowed in the exhibition so you will have to settle for some links to the museum's Flickr albums and some short notes on our favourite paintings.

Here is the album on Flickr for the exhibition.  It is quite interesting to look at the photos of the museum staff setting up the paintings.  There are some photos of the inspections of the paintings upon arrival in New Zealand.  Wow, do they go over those paintings with a fine tooth comb to check for damage!  There is also an album of the opening night, where several ladies dressed up as subjects in some of the paintings.   It is worth a look!

This was Eeuwe's, Ainsley's and my favourite painting in the exhibition:

 Woman with a parasol and a small child on a sunlit hillside

Pierre Auguste Renoir, c1874-76

The two things that really struck us about this painting were the large brush strokes and the beautiful vivid green.  This picture doesn't do the real painting justice!

Bethany's favourite was this one:

Gathering wood in the forest of Fontainebleau

Theodore Rousseau c1850-1860

There is a tiny figure in the middle of the painting, a bit hard to see in this copy!

Emily's favourite painting was the cathedral...

I'm not sure why, perhaps the haze fascinated her.  This painting was definitely better viewed from a distance!

Ruby's favourite (and it came a close second for me) was this one:

Again, the beautiful colours appealed to us and the detail achieved, even though larger brush-strokes were used here too.  Ruby especially liked the little babe reading a book.

Fashionable Figures on the Beach

Eugene Boudin, 1865.

This image isn't very clear, but the painting made us laugh - imagine going to the beach in all that fancy attire!

Fisherman's Cottage on the Cliffs at Varengeville

Claude Monet, 1882

This was beautiful, the white fluffy clouds, the pretty blues & greens in the sea, the reds in the flowers.  Monet love reds.  This painting makes me want to live by the sea....

I could go on...there were so many beautiful paintings.  We were thankful for the opportunity to go and see them all.

We finished off our museum visit by viewing the colossal squid!  It's not quite as colossal as you might imagine, but still pretty amazing.  There was a 3-D movie showing the squid catching prey - it's long tentacles seemed to come out and catch you!  The most fascinating aspect of the squid for me was the model of one of it's oscillating hooks - amazing!  Have a look at the presentation on this website for more information.

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Here is the first painting by Monet on the list for the exhibition:

Woodgatherers at the Edge of the Forest

circa 1863.

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Well, the exhibition is finally here.  We didn't finish our Impressionists study last year, but I'm planning to pick it up again now.  Our national museum, Te Papa, is hosting the exhibition.  They have put up a list of all the paintings that are included in the exhibition, so we can now have a look at each of them before we go. We'll just start from the top of the list and look at one or two each week.

There are some great education links within the Te Papa website.  This one suggests several questions to ask students about some of the paintings.

Monsieur Perrot's Dance Class

Edgar Degas, ca. 1875.

Oil on Canvas.

I chose this picture because it's in our Colour Your Own Impressionist Paintings book.

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Well, after a break from artist study for the past month, I thought we had better get into it again!

This month's artist is Edgar Degas.  This brings to mind pictures of ballerinas....

Edgar Degas

1834-1917

Click here to read his biography.  He did paint more than ballerinas, I hope to share some of his other paintings with you this month too.

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This week's picture is the last for our Pissarro study.  I have chosen this picture because it is featured in our new colouring book (see below).  This is "Picture Study the Easy Way!" 

Camille Pissarro. Chestnut Trees at Louviciennes, ca. 1872. Oil on Canvas.

This is one of Pissarro's "non-pointillism" paintings.  If there is such a word!

This morning this book arrived:

It has several colouring pages for all the Impressionists we are planning to study this year, and includes some of Renoir's paintings that were missing from Colour your Own Renoir Paintings.  No doubt, some of these will be turned into paper dolls at some stage!

I think the girls are getting a bit sick of me asking them to do a drawing for Sketch Tuesday and Picture Study every week!  I'm still waiting for their pictures of Renoir's Lady at the Piano, but I thought I'd post the pictures & narrations they did for it 4 years ago.  Hopefully it's an encouragement to some of you that even the little ones can have a go!

Here is Bethany's Picture & Narration, at age 5 1/2:

Emily at age 4 found it easier to copy Beth's picture than the original!

It is so lovely to look back at these pictures years later.  I keep them in a large clear file which has it's own plastic box so it sits neatly on the shelf.  I'd still love the girls to try this one again!

Here is this week's Pissarro Picture:

The Shepherdess. 1881. Oil on Canvas.

This week I have linked to www.ibiblio.org.

I usually post the picture for the week on a Monday, but here it is a few days late!  I love this picture, it reminds me to be thankful we have washing machines nowadays!!

Washerwomen, Eragny-sur-Epte, 1895.

I love the beautiful glowing, golden colours Pissarro uses in his paintings.