Day 535 "Still Light with Compote a la Matisse" pen, ink, marker

Tonight, I was looking through images online, as I often do... exploring, and saw a few of Matisse's paintings of fruit in still life.  I like the arrangement of this one with the compote.  This is a value study.  You can see the painting below.  I like the textures and the values, and although the placement of objects provides depth, the modelling is still quite flat, and the value shifts are strong and mostly crisp.. This was painted in 1899, when Matisse was 30 years old.  His style shifted as the decades passed, including his paper cutouts in the 1920s and 1930s.  There is a consistency in the powerful, angular shapes that is very appealing.  
This is my five hundred thirty-fifth daily drawing.  As always, I appreciate your interest and your comments.  

Painting with Paper - Follow the values!

When my project students at South Shore Charter Public School arrived the other day, I handed each of them a small color copy of a painting.  I told them they could trade with each other if they wanted.  (Surprisingly, very little trading). Then they had to make a rectangle proportional to the small painting in their sketchbooks.  I then revealed several containers of colored paper, with and without pattern, lots of color, wide range of values, and told them they were going to "paint with paper".  I showed them an example from my blog from a while back when I recreated one of my own paintings in paper. 

 Initially, my kids were a bit stymied that we didn't have exactly the right colors, but then we talked about how value was more important than color, and magic started to happen..  I chose paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Fairfield Porter, Gaugin, and Carol Marine all for their accessibility, masses of color, and strong light to dark pattern.  Here are their results so far. 

I am so excited by what they are seeing, and how they are constructing their "paintings".. not to mention how well they are cooperating with one another.  Splendid day!

Inspired by Matisse "Harmony in Red" 6 x 6 oil

The December challenge for Girls Just Wanna Paint was to paint with Matisse in mind. I am most familiar with his paper cutouts.  Some of you may be aware of my interest in cutting paper so it crossed my mind to do a Matisse-inspired paper piece.  However, when I spent some time researching Matisse paintings and images, the paper idea slipped away.   

I learned that Matisse studied law, and became interested in art during a year of convalescence in his very early twenties.  His artistic evolution is so interesting to explore.

Look at this still life from early in his career, Fruit and Coffee Pot, a long way from the pattern-laden, abstracted nature of his work I was familiar with.  Seeing "Fruit and Coffee-Pot" pulled  Gustave Caillebotte's painting "Fruits sur un Etalage" (see below) from some dusty corner of my brain.  Caillebotte was 20 years Matisse's senior, not sure if they knew one another.  

 Back to the GJWP challenge:
 
My painting is loosely based on Matisse's "Harmony in Red" below.  I set up a few red objects, and included a couple of Matisse bookmarks as backdrop.  I tried to flatten the perspective, relying only on placement of objects in front and behind to define the space, to keep the shades of red very close in value, and to explore an outline of many shapes, which I applied after, with mixed success.  I substituted the dominant black and white figure from the paper cut out for the high contrast woman in "Harmony in Red". 

By the way, look at the beautiful repetition of shape in "Harmony in Red" - blue designs on the table cloth to the undulating fruit/flower piece on the table to the back wall - almost like two raised hands cradling an object.   It was certainly an interesting exercise, and the research was fascinating. Thanks for looking and Happy New Year.