Vincent Van Gogh (born 1853, died 1890) is probably one of the most well-known and influential artists of the 19th century.
Here are some of the facts we learnt about Van Gogh. Did you know that?
1) Van Gogh signed his work ‘Vincent because he believed that Van Gogh would be too difficult for people to pronounce.
2) Many of his works were not signed because he thought it would be arrogant to sign them.
3) Van Gogh carried red and blue chalk to draw with when explaining his ideas to friends. Friends would keep extra paper around to spread on tables so he would not draw on the walls and furniture.
4) In his lifetime, Van Gogh completed 872 paintings, 1019 drawings and 150 watercolours in only 10 years.
During Art we recreated to two of Van Gogh’s most famous pieces of Art. Using oil pastels we examined dark colours in ‘Starry Night’ and we used bright colours in our interpretation of ‘Sunflowers’
We have studied the Antarctic in SESE Geography
In keeping with the cold winter weather we have been learning about the Antarctic which is more commonly known as, “The South Pole”. We looked specifically at the Emperor penguin who resides in Antarctica. We made our own penguins and completed a book filled with interesting facts based on Antarctica. Did you know that the Antarctic is the windiest place in the entire world? Also the lowest temperature on Earth was recorded there in 1983 (-89.2 degrees Celsius). As a class we decided we would not like to live there because firstly it is far too cold and secondly it is dark for 6 months of the year.
Kandinsky Farbstudie Quadrate
We were learning about famous visual artist Wassily Kandinsky and how he was also a talented musician. We looked at a variety of Kandinky's work including Kandinsky's circular colour studies. During Art we explored concepts of colour and how it relates to emotion.
Examples: What emotion do you associate with red? (anger, embarrassment etc.)
What emotions do you associate with blue? (sadness, loneliness, calm)
What emotions do you associate with yellow? (happiness, contentment, warmth) etc.
We recreated Kandinsky’s Farbstudie Quadrate while listening to a variety of music based on how the music made us feel. When we complete our quadrates we put them together to make a large piece of art. The results are quite stunning.
