(playing a bit of catch up here…. I had computer issues and this post never got published….)

Ellie has loved this whole “Artist for tea” thing. Van Gogh is part of the family now. He goes to Whole Foods, rides along in the car and talks to Ellie daily. We were in Michael’s the other day and she saw a Van Gogh coloring book and immediately knew who it was. But these past few days, Ellie has asked if “someone new is coming? A new artist”. So, we’re moving on. Van Gogh went back to France and Jackson Pollock has come to stay with us for a while. (and yes, those are pumpkin O’s Ellie has shared with Jackson).

We read a fantastic book about Pollock called Action Jackson. Great illustrations and Ellie was captivated by the rhythm of this story. I also let her watch a you tube video of Jackson Pollock actually painting. I  found these little cartoons about artists. They are a bit jarring for my taste but, I liked that they introduced artists in a way that Ellie seemed to understand and enjoy, even if I didn’t quite appreciate the noisy cartoonish-ness. The next couple of days, I set up a few painting like-Pollock activities. We did a full-scale large canvas:

And a spinning top with paint activity as well as dropping paint from a ladder ( we used her high chair).
It was certainly a fun art experience. We talked about movement while painting and explored texture (paint, upon paint) and using different materials to paint with, like Pollock did. I’m not sure looking at his paintings were exactly her cup of tea (mine either), but I sure learned a lot about this fascinating man and very much respect the talent he had. I’m wanting to rent the movie Pollock for Jeff and I to watch after Ellie goes to bed. Anyone seen it?

We are moving on to Paul Cezanne next week. I normally wouldn’t switch artists this quickly. I like staying with one artist for as long as we can, but I really liked the idea of incorporating Cezanne’s apple paintings into our Autumn and Johnny Appleseed festivities.