PAUL CÉZANNE: MEET THE ARTIST

Please allow 1 1/2 hours of classroom time

SUPPLIES

• 12 x 18 paper - 1 per child (choose from light blue, yellow, light green or white) (ART CLOSET)
• Tempera paints in all colors: blue, red, orange, green, yellow, brown, white, black, pink (ART CLOSET)
• Paint brushes - 1 per child (ART CLOSET)
• Paper plates to create paint palettes or paint trays (3-4 kids can share a paint tray) (ART CLOSET)
• Plastic cups filled with water to clean brushes - 1 per child (ART CLOSET)
• Pencils and erasers (FROM CHILDREN'S OWN SUPPLIES)
• Paper towels, folded to create a blotter for paint brushes - 1 per child (BRING FROM HOME)
• Fresh fruit, like apples, oranges, pears (BRING FROM HOME) **Do not leave in Art Closet
• Props: pitcher and bowl. Fabric for older grades.  (ART CLOSET)
• Poster of Cézanne still life to show the class (ART CLOSET)
• Color print-out of images mentioned in lesson to display on ELMO or pass around the room (ART CLOSET)
• Kinder, TK, 1st: please read a book about Cézanne INSTEAD of the script. Cézanne and the Apple Boy is in the Art Closet. 

NOTE TO ALL ART REPS: You will create a still arrangement of fruit that all the kids can see while painting. Ask your teacher if she/he has an extra desk or table in the classroom to set up your props. If not, you can create 2 or 3 smaller vignettes in the middle of the children's work areas. In most classrooms the desks are grouped together. Keep the prop arrangements SIMPLE and quick—they don't need to look exactly like the posters and they don't all need to be exactly the same! You can choose from items in the Art Closet (bowls, plates, pitchers, a vase, fabric for older grades). Feel free to supplement with props from home. Please bring fruit from home such as apples, oranges, and pears. These 3 shapes work well because they are familiar to children. WE CANNOT KEEP FRUIT IN THE CLOSET so please share it with the class at the end or take it home. 

(Show class the image of Cézanne)

WRITE PAUL CÉZANNE'S NAME ON WHITE BOARD

SCRIPT

Good Morning Friends! Today we are going to learn about a very famous artist named Paul Cézanne, who is often known as the "Father of Modern Art" because he created a new way of painting. 

Cézanne did NOT like to paint things exactly the way they are. Does anybody remember what that is is called (Impressionism, Abstract Art). He liked to use many little brushstrokes, simple shapes, and painted layers of paint and color on top of each other, like you can see here in this self-portrait he painted when he was about 40 years old.    {Art Rep: point out as you describe}.    He often liked to outline his subjects with a dark line as well, to help them stand out from the rest of the painting.    {Art Rep: show black lines around head and outline of coat}.    If you can believe it, he became very famous for painting bowls of fruit! So after we've learned a little more about him, that's what we're going to do today too!

Paul Cézanne was born in France in 1839 and he lived to be 67 years old. He had 2 sisters and his family had a lot of money. His father wanted him to be a lawyer, so Paul studied to become a lawyer, but he changed his mind and moved to Paris to become an artist when he was 23. His father was not very happy with that decision, and he and Cézanne disagreed about that for many years. In fact, not many people appreciated his artwork for most of his life, and few people bought his paintings until he was in his 50s. Now his paintings hang in museums, and are bought and sold for millions of dollars!

(show image)

Cézanne paintied many portraits when he first started painting. This painting is from a series called "Card Players". He usually took so long (because he liked to use so many brushstrokes, paint so many layers of color on top of each other, and often painting the portrait over and over again to get things just right) that people started getting tired of posing for him. So he painted self-portraits instead. 

• Can anyone tell me the difference between a portrait and a self-portrait? 
• Why do you think he painted more self-portraits? {Art Rep: ask the children to find examples of small brushstrokes / black outlines / color layering, etc that are indicative of Cézanne's style.}

(show image)

People didn't always understand the way he saw the world, so he often ended up painting alone, or with his good friend Camille Pissarro, who was also a great artist who saw the world a bit differently. They would go out into nature and paint landscapes. 

• Can anyone guess what a landscape is? {Painting the natural scenery around you}

Cézanne saw, and painted, the world in basic shapes—cones, spheres, cylinders, and cubes.    {Art Rep: help the kids identify the shapes in the image.}

(show image)

Which shapes do you see in this landscape painting?

(show image)

But he was most famous for his still life paintings of fruit—he painted over 200 of them! What do you think a "still life" is? {take their responses.} A still life is a painting (or photograph) of something that is not alive and doesn't move, that the artist carefully arranges before painting it. What do you see in this painting? Do you think it is a still life? It is! :-) 

• Why do you think Cézanne painted so many still life paintings?

He liked painting oranges, pears, and apples the best because of their round, spherical shapes. As you can see, he outlines them in black (like we've seen in some of his other paintings. 

• What can you tell me about HOW he uses color here? He uses different colors layered upon each other with many little brushstrokes to get the image he wants. {Art Rep: point it out and ask the kids to point out examples in this painting.}
• Do you see the plate with fruit on it in this picture? What can you tell me about it? 
• Does it almost look like it's tipping, like the fruit might roll off? 

Cézanne did this a lot in his still lifes. It's almost like you're seeing most of the table from the side, but the plate of fruit from a different angle—from above. He did this to get a better angle on the shapes. Does anyone remember an artist we studied last year that liked to paint things from many angles all at the same time? He started Cubism? PICASSO! Picasso was a big fan of Cézanne's work and how he looked at things in many different ways all at the same time.

Another unique thing about Cézanne's still life paintings is how he painted the tablecloth. 

• What do you notice about it? 
• Is it smooth? It's kind of scrunched up, right? Is that how tablecloths usually are? 
• Why do you think he did that? 

People say it was because he wanted to paint the different shapes and shadows you can find in cloth like that. Tell me about the different colors, shapes, and shadows you notice.

So today, you will be using Cézanne's style to make your own still life painting! Remember that a still life is a work of art that shows objects that don't move, like flowers, rocks, and food. It can also be man-made things like vases, fabric, books.

CREATE ART! 

NOTE TO ART REPS: Make sure the still life with props is set up in class, an image or poster of a fruit still life is displayed, and Paul Cézanne's name is written on the white board.

SKETCH

Using pencils, we are going to sketch our still-life arrangement on the paper. I want everyone to look at the still-life arrangement. You don't have to paint this arrangement exactly how it is, but you can use it as a model. Think about what you want to include. You can decide which objects you want to draw and where they should be on your paper. Sketch lightly so you can easily erase any lines you don't like.

• FIRST we will draw the table with our pencils. In almost all of Cézanne's paintings there is a horizontal line. Let's draw a horizontal line across the paper in the bottom third of the painting to create our tabletop. {TK, Kinder, 1st: please define horizontal — a line that runs right and left across the page. You can point to a horizontal line in the poster.} Cézanne gave tabletops and sometimes plates an unnatural slant—kind of like we're looking at that part of the painting from above. In the image of Fruit, 1900, does it look like the apples will roll off the plate or the front of the table? You might want to do that in your painting too by making the line slant to one side.

OLDER GRADES can draw table legs and add more detail if they like. They can also sketch the outlines of a tablecloth. Kids may want to copy Cézanne or come up with their own ideas.

• SECOND: Still using the pencil, we are going to draw the objects on our tables: bowl, fruit, pitcher, etc. You can decide what you want to include. Remember how Cézanne used basic shapes in his paintings—cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres? We will also use those shapes to draw the objects on the table. Also, remember how his plates looked a little slanted? Just like Cézanne, ours don't have to be perfectly straight either. TK, Kinder, 1st: You can demonstrate how to draw a bowl of fruit on the white board using simple shapes: draw a half circle for the bowl, a rectangle for the bowl's base, and circles for the fruit. See image below for reference or show it the class.

Remember to draw BIG and use a good portion of the paper. You should only draw the OUTSIDE EDGES of the objects because we'll be painting them in. The outside edges are called the Contour Lines. 

PAINT

Start to paint! Cézanne like to layer different colors on top of each other to get things exactly the way he wanted them. We are going to do that too. We'll be mixing colors right on top of the paper! 

• FIRST pick colors for the fruit. Once you're done painting the fruit in your chosen color, try adding a 2nd color right on top of it. If you are painting a red apple, try adding a little bit of yellow or green to it. Apples are not flat, right? When you add a darker color, like a dark blue or purple to a corner of your apple it looks like a shadow. If you add yellow or white to a part of your apple, it will make the apple look lighter—that's called a highlight. Layering colors on top of each other like this makes the apple look round instead of flat, and gives it dimension. {ART REPS: show image below to class and point out the shadow, highlight, and anything else you want to discuss.}

(show image)

• SECOND: Use short brushstrokes. Cézanne used short brushstrokes so his painting would not look flat and to get things exactly the way he wanted them. Try layering a color by painting with short brush strokes that are all going in the same direction (because that's what Cézanne did). K, TK, 1st: you may need to demonstrate the difference between short and long brush strokes. Does it create a texture? What do you think about it?

NOTE: PLEASE ASK THE KIDS TO CLEAN THEIR BRUSHES BETWEEN COLORS BY FIRST SWISHING THEM IN WATER AND THEN WIPING EXCESS WATER OFF ON THE FOLDED PAPER TOWEL. WE DON'T WANT COLORS TO GET MIXED UP AND MUDDY.

• THIRD: Finish painting the rest of your drawing. Continue to experiment with layering colors and using short brush strokes. A brown table, for instance, could have hints of orange, yellow, or red. Short brush strokes might look like the texture of wood.

OLDER GRADES OPTIONAL TABLECLOTH: When you are ready to paint the tablecloth, keep in mind that Cézanne used many brushstrokes that followed the movement of the folds to create simple shadows and layers of color. We're going to do that too. Use a dark color to paint thin lines in the fabric to represent shadows and folds. This gives the fabric dimension, so it doesn't look like a flat piece of paper. {Art Rep: Point out on the poster how the dark areas represent shadows.}

• FOURTH: Cézanne's fruit and other objects have a dark line around the outside edges. When you outline something in a dark color, it makes that object stand out even more. If you have time, you can paint a thin black or dark blue line around the edges of your still life objects (optional for TK, KINDER, 1st). These are called the contour edges.

• FIFTH IF YOU HAVE TIME: Fill in the background so the entire paper has color. Cézanne's backgrounds had lots of highlights and shadows, so try layering colors in the background too, lighter colors for highlights and darker colors for shadows. When painting the background, make sure you don't cover up any of your objects with paint. You don't need to paint all the way to the edge of the fruit, if that's easier. You can leave a little bit of unpainted paper between the background and your objects to make sure nothing is covered up.

All artists must sign their artwork. Please put your first and last name in the lower righthand corner. Congratulations! You've just created a still-life in the style of Paul Cézanne! Please leave the artwork with your teacher.

MUSIC NOTES: The kids enjoy creating art with music in the background. The easiest way to do this is to play music from your smart phone or iPod on a bluetooth speaker from home. Some classrooms also have CD players. French composer Claude Debussy lived in France during the same time as Cézanne and was inspired by Impressionist painters of the time. Any of his classical piano pieces would be a great fit for this project. 

Example from a 5 year old artist