Poinsettias Flower Art: Raoul Dufy

Raoul Dufy, Pink Bunch, 1940

student work:

About the Artist: Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), "the painter of joy", was a french Fauvist painter.  Fauvism was an outgrowth of Impressionism (<- think Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir). As a young art student in Paris, Dufy attended exhibits of the Impressionists and was influenced by their loosening use of color and form, but when he saw Matisse's groundbreaking paintings, drenched in bright colors, he knew he'd found his people: Les Fauves ("the wild animals"). Matisse's Fauves emphasized bright colors, wild brushstrokes, bold contrasts, and were a step closer to abstraction than the Impressionists. Dufy's work throughout his career was characterized by its optimism, color, and beauty, even in his later years as he branched off into fabric and stationary design.

Using this simple slideshow of Dufy's work, discuss using our questions: What do you see? What makes you say that? What more can you find? If you have the opportunity in your discussion you might to bring out the following topics:

• color - can you find complementary colors in these paintings? What do they do when they are placed next to each other? How do the colors make the paintings feel?
• repetition - do you see where he uses the same colors or shapes over and over to create a pattern?
• realistic or abstract? Was Dufy trying to paint the way the flowers actually looked? Or the way the flowers felt to him? (Sometimes paint can capture something that words can't!)

This project uses Dufy's loose and colorful flowers as inspiration. The original activity comes from Deep Space Sparkle (click there for more examples).

Supplies: red yellow white tempera paints, blue and green tempera or liquid watercolor paint, paper plates, q-tips, foam brushes, watercolor paper, sponges cut into leaf shapes - 1 per kid (and, totally optional - maybe a real poinsettia plant to use as a visual aid)

Activity: 

• using a q-tip, paint little centers of the poinsettia plants on your papers
• use the leaf sponges, dip into red/white paint and make petals around the centers
• paint a background color with the foam brush that contrasts with the red flowers (green or blue) around your page full of poinsettias

SaveSave
SaveSave