Home School Art Class ----Grades 4 through 6

Study of Famous Painter - Mary Cassat

In this class we studied Mary Cassatt and took some time to discuss her life as well as to view several of her famous paintings.  We noticed that women and children were her favorite subjects.  Our model painting for this class is the Boating Party (see below).  

                                          

Mary Cassat  -  The Boating Party

We noticed her bold use of color and how the lines of this painting draw the eye to the main focus which is the mother and her baby.  Then we took time to carefully draw out our painting.   We discussed the drawing technique of treating all the shapes in this painting like a jigsaw puzzle that need to fit together to make a whole.  I showed the class how to check angles of the lines as well as other techniques to check proportion of the lines they draw.  After our drawing was complete we painted the lightest colors first and worked our way up to the darkest colors....with some discussion of how to properly mix very light colors by starting with white paint on the pallet and adding the smallest amount of pigment to get the light shade..  The children followed the direction very carefully and achieved fantastic results.  I am so proud of their work!

The children in this class were Grades 4 to 6th grade.