Fourth and Fifth Grade Cubist Still Lifes

Fourth and fifth grade students learned about how cubist artists painted pictures from multiple viewpoints.

Cubism began in France in 1907 and Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were two of the most popular artists. Braque’s paintings were made up of cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones, and other geometric shapes. The paintings looked like someone had cut them up and glued them back together.

These still lifes are viewed from the front and the side and are similar in style to those of Georges Braque. Students painted the first coat of colored tempera different than the second color. They washed off most of the second coat revealing parts of the undercoat and the original crayon line work.

Georges Braque

Student works

Prepared paper collage with Eric Carle 

Students at Belmont had the opportunity to see a traveling puppet show at Lincoln’s prestigious Lied Center for the performing arts.  They saw the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia use puppetry to bring to life three of Eric Carle’s famous children’s books.

To get ready for the show students studied artist Eric Carle’s life and work and also made their own prepared paper collages. The elements and principles of art that they learned included: line, shape, texture, and balance.

The following are a few example of the Eric Carle study by 1^st -3^rd grade students.