Sunday, March 6, 2011

Hundertwasser Inspirations





The above collages were created by 6-9 year olds


carved foam for prints



You know you've taken too long to enter a new blog post when your mother calls and tells you, "I'm tired of the Lorax, you need to put something new on there" Ha!
Well during this 6 week art session my students are creating works inspired by two children's books (The Lorax and Armadillo Ray) , several artists, including Marc Chagall and Hundertwasser), and a couple other projects.

I purchased a wonderful book "Harvesting Dreams, Hundertwasser for Kids" by Barbara Steiff. It playfully highlights this very unique artist's take on the world and a bit of insight into his instantly recognizable works of art. I hadn't known that he was born, Fritz Stowasser and changed his name to Freidensreich Hundertwasser, German for: Kingdom of Peace Hundred Water. (Later he threw in 2 more middle names Regentag Dunkelbunt, meaning Rainy Day, Dark Bright. I have had fun exploring some ideas to capture his love of nature, "dark-bright" colors and curved lines.

The bottom piece is a straightforward oil pastel and watercolor resist that mimics Hundertwasser's other-worldly gardens and repetition of line.

The top pieces are collage prints created with two styrofoam plates. These Hundertwasser inspired villages were created using acrylic prints on carved foam on a variety of colored construction papers. The prints were cut out and highlighted with oil pastel. They were layered to create a city-like feel. This project was inspired by these pieces from Artsonia from a school in Hong Kong.

7 comments:

  1. In my humble opinion, I think using the styrofoam is in keeping with his theme of creating less garbage. You have saved something that would have been discarded and repurposed it to make a beautiful art piece. Plus there are some places that now recycle those styrofoam trays, maybe you are near one and it will have a third life. I think you should be guilt-free. In any case...I think the project is wonderful.

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  2. I agree with Christina...you are repurposing something that would have gone straight to the trash. I recycle the styrofoam lunch trays fro0m our cafeteria for printmaking and pouring paint onto all the time. I love the Hundertwasser lessons! I am going to look for the book and try to imcorporate him into my around the world theme!

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  3. Thanks Christina and Jessica. I think I'll go ahead with this lesson.
    I'll post the results later.

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  4. OK I love this and you are definitely recycling. I was a student in Vienna and loved his work... May have to try this lesson - just excellent!

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  5. Mary-I really liked the idea of using the styrofoam lunch trays-I just discovered Hundertwasser recently and have enjoyed doing a few projects on him (see my blog DoArtImagineExploreCreate.blogspot.com for one I just finised) I plan on doing a building class on him for one of my summer classes. I will have to try your lesson too. I was looking at your Rosina W. cat lesson which I might try as well-they turned out great. I would like to list you on my blog-is that ok? Thanks! Edna

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  6. i love the circles!!! I am totally doing this with my kindergartners, but i think the circles may look like ovals. we'll give it a whirl, though!

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  7. Will try this with my class! By the way: it's Friedensreich; and "Dunkelbunt" means "dark-colorful". Greetings from a Viennese graphic designer who is a Hundertwasser fan and lives in Ireland now. :-)

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