Art Good Enough to EAT

It’s already November. With Thanksgiving fast approaching some of you might already be thinking about FOOD! Not only is food a favorite thing for people to eat, it’s a favorite SUBJECT for artists to paint, sculpt and photograph. a feast for the eyes.

Andy WarholCampbell's Soup Cans1962

Pop Artists like Andy Warhol often filled their art with grocery items like soup cans, bananas and even Coca Cola.  

Food is essential to our survival. It is also one of the great pleasures in life. It's no surprise then that fruit, vegetables, meat, and drink have been common SUBJECTS in art.

Artist Lucy Sparrow uses felt to sew everyday food items we might see in a grocery store or bodega.  She makes intricately sewn items and creates supermarket installations filling an actual shop with her felt art.  Think of how many art pieces she would have to make.

Some FOOD art can be kinda CHEESY! Cocktail Party by Sandy Skoglund features cheese doodle covered sculptures.

Sandy Skoglund

Portraits by Giuseppe Arcimboldo are a FEAST for the eyes.  Portraits that look like a harvest.  (what does Harvest mean).  Raise your hand once you recognize a fruit or vegetable you can name.

Roy Lichtenstein - Still Life With Crystal Bowl

Bowls, platters and dishes overflowing with fruit have been a popular STILL-LIFE subject 

Photographer Gregg Segal traveled the world taking photos of what children in other countries eat.  Here are a few.  Do you eat any of the same foods as a child in Mumbai or Senegal?

How many of you like to cook with your family?  What do you like to cook? Can you tell what this family is preparing in this painting by Carmen Lomas Garza?  Have you ever eaten this food?

Carmen Lomas Garza Empanadas (turnovers), 1991

There seems to be plenty to eat in Carmen's painting but another artist, Vincent Van Gogh painted a picture of a family sharing a simple meal of only potatoes. Vincent used dark colors to show the mood of the scene.  How does this painting feel? This art piece showed a food shortage at this time and people didn't have enough to eat.

The Potato Eaters by Vincent Van Gogh

Some of the art could be served up for DINNER and other artists focussed on DESSERT

Claes Oldenburg, Floor Burger, 1962.

How about a burger and fries--super sized!  Claes Oldenburg creates these larger than life soft sculptures of food and other everyday items.

Claes Oldenburg, French Fries and Ketchup, 1963.

Artist Maira Kalman not only illustrates her meals she may also include text about what she's eating.  How much did this meal cost?

 Artist Wayne Thiebaud's (tee-bow) art is pretty SWEET!

Wayne Thiebaud. Pie Slice

Wayne's main SUBJECT is often food — mouth-watering artworks where pies, cakes, candy, and ice cream are the subject and painted or colored in pastel hues.

Some meals are special when people you love and care about gather around the table.

"Freedom from Want by Norman Rockwell serves up the idea of American food, holidays, and family, picturing rows of smiling faces bordering a table set with white linen and white plates and simple sides."

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci might be one of the most famous food gatherings in a work of art.  

The Dinner Quilt by Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold stitched fabric together to create this quilted gathering of people around the table.  Notice the pattern of plates and portraits.

Will you create a still-life with dishes and platters of food?

Will your art show a gathering of people you care about?

Do you have a special memory of a meal that you might create art about?

Art that's for the Birds--art featuring our fine feathered friends

Emily Maude

Artists can be inspired by the natural world and that includes animals such as birds. What a 'hoot' that there are some artists who mainly focussed on birds as the subject of their art. Let's look at art 'that's for the birds'.

Jean Michel Basquiat Bird On Money, 1981

SUBJECT may be thought of as the "what" in a piece of art: the topic, focus, or image. The most common subjects of art include people (portraiture), arrangements of objects (still-life), the natural world (landscape), and abstractions (non-objective).

Artist Juan Fontanive constructs ornithology flip books which constantly loop.  Ornithology,  deals with the study of birds

each frame comes together to form a single bird in flight

This art is Kinetic, it moves, it's in motion. How cool that you might make art that moves.





detail

John James Audubon (April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, hunter, and painter. 

Carolina Parrot

He painted, described and put art images of life-size birds in catalogues (books) --the birds of North America.  These books are still referenced today

Mourning Dove

Like Audubon, Charley Harper did field work, gathered information in the real natural environment and studied birds. 

Charley put his spin on birds, plants and animals. Charley had his own style of creating birds

Once There Was a Field

These birds are less realistic, more simplified and abstracted. You may notice lots of shapes make the flowers, insects and birds.

Birdfeeders
Charley said, "When I look at a wildlife ... I see exciting shapes, color combinations, patterns, textures, ...endless possibilities for making interesting pictures."

Rainforest Birds
Charley grew up on a farm in West Virginia, spending time out in nature while avoiding the chores. Since his graduation from art school, he developed his own style of nature illustration often using printmaking to create his bird filled art.

Round Robin
Let's look at a few other artists who included birds as a SUBJECT in their art.

Orchid and Hummingbird by Martin Johnson Heade 1885

The Little Owl is a watercolor on paper by Albrecht Durer from 1508, over 500 years ago. 

Joseph Cornell was an amateur naturalist and bird-watcher. For Joseph, birds were a symbol of ....freedom, their flight path linking the sky and earth. 


Joseph made a number of 'habitats' using natural materials collected on walks in the woods and fields.  Have you ever collected materials in nature? 

The box represents environments in museums. (Have you seen cases or boxes of objects in a museum?) Joseph Cornell created various collaged materials inside boxes. These 3D collages are called Assemblage

Constantin Brancusi’s Bird in Space. --some students thought this looked like a feather others saw a bird.  What do you see?



Day and Night, 1938, by MC Escher.
MC Escher used both positive and negative space . The positive space is the pattern of white birds. If you look closely, you will see a pattern of black birds in the negative spaces between .


This Pueblo pottery also features birds in positive and negative space.

Pueblo pottery are ceramic (clay) objects made by the indigenous  Pueblo people in the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico

Molly Parks created this bird art. Molly is an outsider artist who comes from a family filled artists and musicians.  An Outsider artist is self-taught and not really part of the art community.

 Forgotten Song by Michael Thomas Hill is an installation in an alley between two buildings.  How is this an artwork about birds?

*Will you create work inspired by our feathered friends?
*What other animals can be the subject of your art?
*Will creating an assemblage, a 3D collage, be the best way to express your idea?

*Will you observe birds in nature?

Your Turn

Perhaps you'll make a collage inspired by Clare Youngs . Create patterned papers and collage them into possibly a chicken, rooster or duck.

Accordion fold a sheet of paper to create wings.  Cut out a bird body and a slit for the wings to attach.  

Cut out cardboard shapes you would see on a bird.  Attach and add embellishments such as drawn patterns, feathers, sequins, eyes.   

Maybe you'll make finger puppets or a drawing.

Sources:

https://artprojectsforkids.org/little-birdies-watercolor-painting/

http://theartroomplant.blogspot.com/2013/02/holly-parks.html

https://iheartcraftythings.com/paper-bird-craft.html

http://marymaking.blogspot.com/2016/06/recycled-cardboard-birds.html

https://www.artcampla.com/new-blog/8-women-artist-inspired-projects
https://www.diys.com/paper-birds-tutorial/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/photograph-birds-in-flight?utm_medium=atlas-page&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2HvG0xj61QTFEPcDsOWu_6fRZas78opUK5CHGqBbpuLPjJNdl79_V5VqU

Notes/ to-do:  
*thomas colesite flip birds

*bring in audubon prints
*laminate audubon or bird images to draw