Mark Bradford: Celebrating Black History (in the making!)

Post & Lesson Contributed by Ally Bernstein, Teacher Assistant

Mark Bradford is a well-known contemporary artist from Los Angeles, whose work is relevant to race, class, and site. First, we presented a video of Bradford playing basketball in a Lakers “uniform” that was redesigned to mimic the skirt of an antebellum gown. This enormous skirt made him trip and fall while he tried to shoot baskets, but he always made the shot. His video, which concerned obstacles, success, gender, race, and history, was a great segue into the part of his work that inspired our project for today.

Beye Discovery Student Artwork

Much of Mark Bradford’s work involves layering. He layers, for example, end papers used for bleaching hair, a reference to time spent in his mother’s salon as a child. He also layers signs that he finds, which tell about the neighborhoods that he explores in Los Angeles. Through layering and removing (sometimes with a heavy duty sander), he is able to create beautiful works that sparkle and suggest that the past is part of the present.

 

Joey

We used cardboard and magazine pages to mirror Bradford’s working process, as he often makes use of found materials. Students used watered down glue and carefully layered texts and images from these magazines. When the pieces were dry, students then removed some layers, allowing the buried images to resurface.

The result of the process was resplendent, with rough-hewn surfaces full of depth, color, and texture.

Norah

Leila

Julian

Anika

Lucy

Joseph

Theo

Shlok

Joseph

Anika

Emory

To view the finished collages, please visit our display outside the main office ~ you will be as excited as we are by the results : )

Picasso and Cubism

Post and Lesson Contributed by Ally Berstein, Teacher Assistant

Today’s lesson focused on Picasso and cubism, which he invented with the help of artist Georges Braque. It’s easy to look at Picasso’s work and surmise that he used cubism because he was unable to paint realistically, but if one examines his entire oeuvre, this is clearly not the case. Picasso had classical training in the arts and was able to create incredibly realistic images. Because of this training, he had the confidence to break with tradition and to invent new ways to represent what we see.  

Joseph

To help our students understand how to “see” an object in a new way, we looked at four Picasso sketches of a bull – the first one was illustrated realistically and conveyed the animal’s weight and mass. The second sketch was simplified to suggest the strength of the animal and the third sketch hinted at a skeletal structure, relying on line only. The fourth representation was the simplest of all the sketches, a beautiful contour outlining the edges of the bull, yet perhaps the most expressive. This helped us to understand that not every detail is necessary to convey a figure.

Joel

Cubism asks the viewer to see a flattened view of an object/figure and to consider how it might look from every side. This means that certain features on a face may end up in unexpected places. Ms. Bernstein demonstrated the idea with a plush toy squid, which she first rendered realistically. She also drew the squid in the cubist style, constantly turning it, seeking to convey all the dimensions on the flat drawing surface. Students were very eager to draw their own stuffed animals in this manner and excitedly dove into this project!

Ms. Bernstein demonstrating a realistic and cubist approach

First, through careful observation, the children made a realistic drawing followed by a breathtaking cubist drawing. I was so thrilled with the enthusiasm and the resulting artwork – I felt that Pablo Picasso himself would’ve been proud. This was definitely a favorite day in Beye Discovery for both the students and teachers (and that’s saying a lot!). Take a look at the photos and see for yourself!

Anika

Jackson

Joey

Shlok

Joseph

Dexter

Emory

Heidi

Peyton

Lucy

Lucy

Wilson

Anika

Carson

Jadon

Dexter

Emory

Heidi

Jordan

Joey (2 representational drawings)

Jackson

Elise

Ginger

Elise

Picasso and "Pochoir"

Post & Lesson Contributed by Ally Bernstein,  Assistant Teacher

 

For our second day exploring the work of famous 20^th century artist Pablo Picasso, we read a beautiful story titled “Just Behave, Pablo Picasso!” written by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. This story led to a discussion of the ways in which we might break artistic rules and take risks, and the idea that there is no “correct” way to make art.

For our project, we explored a technique that Picasso was fond of – the stencil! Called “pochoir” in French, creating a stencil with one color of opaque paint naturally lends itself to the flatness that is central to cubism. Tomorrow, we would return to a more in-depth discussion of cubism, but for now we experimented with bold colors and shapes.

Jacob

We made stencils out of thick paper, and then gently painted them in with brushes. The trickiest part of this project was creating a clean edge, however the technique was extremely gratifying even when the paint crept under the stencil's edges. Some students created stencils that suggested specific figures or shapes, while other students opted for organic forms that lifted off the page. Students were also successful at pairing beautiful colors of paint with the color of their background paper.

Elise

Elise

Dexter

Jadon

Leila

Leila

Jessica

Joey

Joey

Chan

Isaac

Yinka

Emily

Laila

Anika

Jordan

While this was our first foray into stenciling, it was so fun that it surely won’t be our last!