“All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.”
-Grant Wood
Fall Plowing, painted in 1931 by Grant Wood
This week we looked at some of the artwork by Grant Wood . Grant Wood was born in 1891 in Iowa. He and his three brothers lived on a farm until his father died when Grant was ten. His mother had to sell the farm and moved to Cedar Rapids, an urban town. Grant had always liked to draw and took drawing lessons from a local artist when he was in high school. His parents were teachers. Grant Wood was a Realist painter, most known for painting scenes of the American Midwest, and in particular; American Gothic. From 1920-1928 he made four trips to Europe where he studied the styles of impressionism. It was the work of Flemish artist Jan van Eyck that most influenced his work. During World War 1 his job was to paint camouflage on tanks. Grant Wood painted during the Great Depression, and his brightly fashioned oil paintings of bountiful farms and local people captured the unique essence of the Midwest. Proud, hard–working families and American legends such as Paul Revere were the subject matter. It was a welcome and stark contrast to the hopelessness of the period. He promoted the Regionalism movement in art; shunning the city and technology and focusing on the scenic rural life of the Midwest.
Young Corn, painted in 1931 by Grant Wood
Art in Action students noticed the graphic style of Grant Wood’s artwork and that the trees look a little bit like broccoli or asparagus. Many students pointed out that some of the paintings were “like minecraft but circles instead of squares.”
For this project, Art in Action infused the landscapes of Grant Wood with the vibrant colours of fall. Students experimented using chalk pastels for the background – and created a vanishing point off the page. Using scraps of paper towel and small detail brushes students pounced or stippled on the acrylic paint for the bright colourful trees on one side and the evergreens on the other side. Using a recycled gift card students stamped on white paint to show ripples in the water below, and pounced on more clouds using bits of paper towel again and white paint. The final step was adding trunks to the trees on the grassy hill and upside down trunks in the reflection. Everyone did such a great job this week creating their beautiful fall landscapes inspired by Grant Wood.
I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!