Workshops for children at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris 2013-2014
These workshops were based on themes emerging from the permament collection of the Museum as well as on the temporary exhibitions held there. As both conference guide and mediator of exhibitions for children and people with special needs, I designed and delivered these workshops to the public.
Workshop on Fermand Léger's machine paintings
With a class of 5-6 year old children we looked at Fernand Léger's painting and how he used geometric shapes and complementary colours to make us feel like were looking at a mechanical machine in movement. They then made their own machine drawings with this in mind
Fernand Léger Machine Painting 1912
Drawing from a Blob
The children (aged 5) first squeezed a blob of paint on paper and squished it with a transparent plastic sheet and then observed the shape they had involuntarily made. They were then taken on a tour of artworks in the Museum of Modern Art Paris and inspired by their observations, they continued their painting. They interpreted the initial blob in the context of an imaginary space where elements of the collection that inspired them featured.
Bonnard's Garden
Bonnard's 1936 painting Le Jardin, offered possibilities for looking at the different textures and spaces of his sunlit vision. The children were invited to draw without contours, through rhythmical mark-making. We discussed the feeling of discovering a beautiful garden and the children came to perceive the pinkish vertical on the right hand side of the painting, bringing the act of opening a shutter and the notion of time into the painting. They then made their own colourful garden with paper 'shutters'.
Pierre Bonnard, Le Jardin, 1936
Children's work (5-6 year olds)
Bonnard 'Nude in the mirror' : seeing both sides
With 4 and 5 year old children we looked at Bonnard's painting 'Nu dans la Glace' and talked about how modern painters wanted to show things from more than one side. By drawing from the painting, the children took in this idea of the seeing the same person from two-angles at the same time.
Pierre Bonnard, Nu devant la Glace, 1918
Robert Delaunay: movement and modernity
Robert Delaunay very large painting 'L'Equipe de Cardiff' (The team from Cardiff),1911, provided lots of themes for discussion. With a group of 10-11 year olds we discussed the beginnings of modernity with the invention of the first aeroplanes, international sport, advertising images, geometry and complementary colours, To help them see the importance of movement to Delaunay's paintings, the children drew first with arrows and then built the geometrical shapes and colours around them
Robert Delaunay, l'Equipe de Cardiff, 1911
Raymond Mason: low reliefs, la rue Monsieur le Prince
A temporary exhibition of Raymond Mason's low reliefs at the Musée d'Art Modern was a great opportunity to discuss the transitions between the three-dimensional and the two-dimensional. In this work an everyday street scene is reproduced with a mixture of both.
