Iowa: Grant Wood

We don’t do a lot of studies, but when I saw Grant Wood was from Iowa and we had just started studying Iowa, I knew we needed an aritst study on him.

 

Since this is our first study, we kept it fairly simple.

 

We read the Great Illustrators book about Grant Wood, if you haven’t read this series I highly recommend it.  They’re a great way to learn more about artists and other historical figures in a non-threatening way.

 

As we read the book we did a lot of talking about his life, and how he decided HIS art would value the every day life.  He went away from all of the modernist styles of the day (think cubism and Picasso) and just painted life in Iowa.

 

His most famous painting is “American Gothic.”  You can see it on the cover of the book, and it’s been redone over and over again but never with the same feeling.  We looked at some of the different versions of it, but decided we wanted to create something that was familiar and close to home for us like he did, instead of making our own version of his painting.

 

I set them loose with watercolor pencils, index cards, and the book to give them ideas.  When they were all done with the painting they wrote down what made them think of home.

 

Or, that’s what they did in theory.

In reality the boys drew monsters and told all about how the monster like living on a farm.  I think that’s what it says.  I can clearly read “He like a farm.”

 

It’s a start…………