Adventures In Art: Challenge 12 - How Bizarre! How Bizzare!

Hello, and welcome back to another Art Club Challenge - our 12th! Before we look at it in more detail here is the link to last week's exhibition if you haven't seen it already.

https://artatmg.blogspot.com/2020/06/things-are-gonna-get-hairy-exhibition.html

Now for something completely different!!

This week's challenge is called

How Bizarre! How Bizarre!

as we are exploring the strange,

wonderful world of surreal art.

We're going to start by looking at one of the key surrealist artists - Rene Magritte.

This painting by Magritte is called 'Geocites'.

What is unusual about this rock?

'Empire Of Light'

Why is this picture 'surreal'?

(What is strange and unusual about it?)

Magritte dressed like this man who appeared in a lot

of his paintings. What is unusual about the man?

Look at these 3 self portraits:

What is unusual about them?

Look carefully at this picture. What is strange about it?

What is different about this room compared to a normal bedroom?

Is it likely that you would ever see a man with a birdcage

for a body? In a Magritte painting you would!

Would you ever see a train coming out of a fireplace?

In a Magritte painting you would!

Things to remember:

Magritte changed ordinary things to make them look strange or funny (the daylight sky in a nightime scene)
He changed the size of things (the painting of the bedroom)
He changed the place of things (the castle on the rock in the sky)
He changed how we see things (the painting in the window)
He changed parts of things (the apple on the man's nose)
He puts together unlikely combinations (a birdcage for a body)

This is one of his most famous paintings - it's called False Mirror

This is another iconic Magritte image. Can you read what it says in French? (We'll tell you further down the page!)

You may well have come across some Anthony Browne books at school, in the library or at home. He is a writer and illustrator and a big fan of Magritte!

Here are some images from his book 'Changes', which you can discuss and appreciate at any age. It's all about a little boy, whose mum is about to have a baby, so everything feels a little strange and different to him. This is reflected in the changes he thinks he sees all around him.

Look at each of the images carefully and discuss what you see.

Have you noticed the way Anthony Browne takes everyday objects and gradually 'morphs' (changes them into) something else?

The challenge!

So your challenge this week is to create your own piece of surrealist art......something a little strange and unusual in the spirit of Rene Magritte or Anthony Browne.

Here are some examples of how children have done their own versions of False Mirror. What would you draw inside your eye?

'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' means 'this is not a pipe' (when it clearly is!!) You could draw your own object boldly on a page and write Ceci n'est pas ... (insert name of object in French) underneath in italic (joined up) writing.
Ask Madamoiselle Zanon if you are stuck:
coralie.zanon@missiongrove.org.uk

Magritte's Peace Dove is another famous image. He often used light blue cloudy skies in his pictures. You could try something similar.

Simply sponge some white paint onto a light blue background.

Then use it to create your own art. Magritte often used cut outs, which is something you could do if you took a photograph of a person or an object and placed the empty shape over a background or cut out the object and place it over a different background......just experiment!