This week’s theme:
Mysterious People – Famous Artists
This week’s colouring in sheet:
Download and print this week’s colouring sheet here.
Activities for the week:
Monday 17th August
Daily Activity 106: Artistic styles and mediums
Fact of the day: There are many different distinctive and recognizable art styles.
Activity 1:
Our theme for our new year at Purple Patch from September will be ‘Adventure’!
Colour this ‘Adventure’ colouring-in sheet in your own artistic style.
Activity 2:
Or, can you colour the Adventure sheet in with different mediums used by famous artists, such as collage, paint, pencil, crayon, watercolours, pen, chalk, or cross hatching.
Activity 3:
Can you colour the different letters of Adventure sheet in the different styles of a famous artist?
You could colour with dots in a technique called ‘Pointillism’ like Georges Seurat.
You could try colouring it in a Van Gogh style, i.e. with a series of dots or dashes of his paintbrush rather than full colouring in.
You could use primary colours like Roy Lichtenstein’s Pop Art.
You could try “Color Field” painting – layers of large flat, solid colour spread across the canvas, like Mark Rothko.
You could try colouring in large geometric squares and rectangles like Piet Mondrian.
You could try colouring in small multicoloured squares like Kari Bienert.
Activity 4:
Send us a photo of your colouring-in, or bring it to show Purple staff at any of your zooms this week and we’ll take snaps there. We’re going to make a collage of everyone’s ‘Adventure’ artwork to share on social media to announce our new theme to the world!
Tuesday 18th August
Daily Activity 107: Art Galleries
Fact of the Day: There are roughly 19,000 art galleries in 124 countries, in 3533 cities worldwide.
Activity 1:
Take the art history challenge! Can you dress up and act as if you were a famous work of art hung in a gallery?
You could become your favourite painting, or could try acting any of these:
Grant Wood, American Gothic
Edward Hopper, Morning Sun
Edward Hopper, Automat
Leonard Da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine
Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring
Frida Kahlo, Self portrait with Bonito
Kehinde Wile, President Barack Obama
René Magritte, The Son of Man
Please take a photo of yourself as a work of art and share it with us! You can share it on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!
Activity 2:
Make an art gallery for an animal, bug, or imaginary creature in your life, like this or this!
Please take a photo or video of any animals enjoying your gallery and share it with us! You can share it on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!
Activity 3:
Go on a virtual tour of the National Gallery from the comfort of your house, or travel to Italy to go on a virtual tour of the Vatican Museum, Rome or travel to the Guggenheim, Bilbao in Spain for a virtual tour , or to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea.
Can you find all of these places on a map of the world?
Wednesday 19th August
Daily Activity 108: Art and mindfulness
Fact of the day: Claude Monet created his water lilies paintings as a respite from hectic city life.
Activity 1:
Watch any of the 5 minute videos from the National Gallery which show a ‘slow’, meditative and mindful look at art – Turner’s ‘Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway’, Redon’s ‘Ophelia among the Flowers’, Rosa Bonheur’s ‘The Horse Fair’ or Bonington’s ‘An Estuary in Northern France’.
Activity 2:
Have a go at Ailsa’s mindful mandala drawing exercise:
Or watch Chemaine’s Mindful Wander which we have shared before:
Activity 3:
There’s a long history of mindfulness trickling into to the art world, and artists going into nature to find serenity. Monet created his water lilies panoramas for the Orangerie Museum in Paris as a respite from hectic city life.
Create a relaxing soundscape of gentle water that would could imagine a Monet’s serene Lily pads floating on. Gently and slowly pour water from one container to another, make gentle waves and swirls in the water with your hands, trickle water between your hands and fingers.
You could also listen to these gentle water sounds.
Thursday 20th August
Daily activity 109: Surrealists
Fact of the day: Surrealism is a form of art that began in around 1920 (100 years ago). The best known surrealist artworks play with and mix-up uncommon and alternative imagery to create unreal, or fantastic creations.
Activity 1:
Surrealists have alternative ways of thinking about the world.
How are you? You alright? How’s it going? are all common ways of greeting somebody but they might not be specific enough to tell how a person is truly feeling. Artist Keeley Shaw’s art here shows alternative, often surreal things that we can ask instead of ‘how are you?’. One interesting idea is asking ‘What colour is your heart today?
What colour is your heart today? How does it feel? Is it blue, is it golden, is it grey? Is it pink with glitter and confetti? Search your house for something that matches the colour of how you feel today. Try it again tomorrow and see if you feel a different colour.
Activity 2:
Hannah Höch was a German artist born in 1889. She’s best known for her surreal collages and photo montages, colliding together different combinations of contrasting images to make something unique. Try cutting up an old magazine and experiment with making your own surreal collaged images.
Activity 3:
Pick out of a 3 bowls different ‘who’ ‘where’ ‘what are they wearing’ prompts to create some surreal paintings from, or some surreal stories to act out and dress up with. Taking inspiration from the themes in the paintings of Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, in your ‘who’ bowl you could have a giantess, a ghost, a child, a horse, a zebra. In your ‘where’ you could have a castle, a moonlit night, a grand room with golden curtains, a green field. In your ‘what are they wearing’ bowl you could have prompts such as a red robe, a fish costume, huge long legs, a big curly wig. Or, come up with your own surreal ideas!
Add on activity:
Can you make yourself a Salvador Dali moustache from items you have at home?
You can share your surreal work on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!
Friday 21st August
Daily Activity 110: Northern English Artists
Fact of the day: LS Lowry is famous for painting scenes of life in the urban and industrial districts of North West England. His human figures, were often referred to as “matchstick men”.
Activity 1:
LS Lowry made artwork about Northern towns. Move your body like some of the shapes and activities in his paintings.
Painting 1 – point yourself upwards like the steeple of the church and scurry about like the dogs. Make the shape of the street lamp and the curve of the street.
Painting 2 – Walk in straight lines like the factory workers. Billow your arms like smoke leaving a chimney stack. Be in a rush like the people who are late.
Painting 3 – Scurry across the street, be jostled by other commuters, drive a car, ride a bicycle.
Painting 4 – Peer into the window of a fish and chips shop – what will you order? Wait your turn, walk a dog, push a pram, put your coat and hat on.
What else can you see in the paintings? You could also have a dance to this song about LS Lowry.
Activity 2:
Barbara Hepworth was a British sculptor, who was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1903. One of her sculptures is called ‘3 Forms’. Which 3 different sized things can you find to try and stack? Can you stack 3 different sized rocks on top of each other? 3 bananas of different sizes on top of each other? Can you stack 3 balloons? 3 cushions? 3 apples? 3 tomatoes? Can you stack a banana, and apple, and a tomato?
Activity 3:
Artist David Hockney was born in Bradford. Imagine living inside a colourful painting by David Hockney. Search your house for the most colourful items, fabrics, packaging you can find. Sit down and build all the colour up around you, creating a hugely colourful Hockney art den, as if you’re living inside one of his paintings.
Why not take a photo of any of the activities you’ve tried this week and share it with us? You can share it on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!