This week Art in Action students reflected on Remembrance Day, sometimes called Armistice Day, to remember those who died in military service, and honour those who served in wartime. Remembrance day is observed across Canada each year on 11 November — the anniversary of the Armistice agreement of 1918 that ended the First World War. Inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields,” written by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, the poppy became a symbol of Remembrance Day. The poppy flower only grows in the absence of other flowers and in ground that has been churned. May 3, 1915 , Canadian Dr. John McCrae observed the poppies growing between the crosses on the soldiers’ graves and wrote “In Flanders Fields.” Poppies are now an international symbol of remembrance around the world.
Art in Action students also looked at the Pop Art and were inspired by Andy Warhol’s Poppies. Andy Warhol was born in 1928 in Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of four children. His father was from Slovakia and worked in a coalmine. He died in an accident when Andy was 12 years old. Warhol was a sickly child and spent a lot of his time drawing and collecting pictures of movie stars. Andy studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1949 he moved to New York City and began his career in magazine illustration and advertising. In 1961 Andy Warhol introduced the concept of “Pop Art” or paintings that focused on mass-produced commercial goods. His style was inspired by popular culture of everyday images you see everywhere. Some of his most famous works include images of Campbell soup cans, Coca Cola bottles, Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson. As his portraits gained fame and notoriety, Warhol began to receive hundreds of commissions from celebrities. His portrait Eight Elvis’s was resold for $100 million in 2008. Warhol was an early adopter of the silk screen printmaking process as a technique he developed for making many paintings. Andy Warhol died in 1987.
This week Art in Action students created a straight horizon line high up on the page using masking tape. The sky was made using chalk pastels and a scraping technique was used to make the field. Individual poppies were made using acrylic paint and students experimented using a variety of brush sizes. The center of the poppy was painted black using fine detail brushes and stems were added using oil pastel. Beautiful and stunning work everyone!
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!
Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
-Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae