You might already know that a portrait is a painting of a person’s head and shoulders. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Dutch and Flemish artists (like Johannes Vermeer) also painted tronies, which are basically portraits of people having fun. They usually featured people wearing costumes (instead of everyday clothes), doing something interesting (instead of just sitting), or making a fun expression (like an evil villain, a class clown, or someone in love). Above are examples of Pépin in a portrait and a tronie.
Try This: Paint a friend’s portrait, then paint them as a tronie wearing a fun expression or costume.
Artists like Gabriël Metsu often painted normal people doing everyday things in everyday places. We call these genre paintings. Pépin decided to draw Cosette painting a picture in Grand-mère’s house. (He also included something tasty. Of course.)
Try This:
1) Pick a room in your house, at school, or somewhere you visit often,
2) Think of a friend or a family member—or yourself!—doing something ordinary, then
3) Paint that person into the room. Voila! You just made a genre painting.
And don’t worry—you don’t have to actually paint it. Use crayons or markers or pencils or whatever you want!
Georges Seurat and his friends invented Pointillism—painting with dots of color instead of long, smooth brushstrokes. Since our eyes blend colors together when small bits of color are placed next to each other, Seurat believed this optical illusion made really intense colors. Cosette tried this technique with her flower (left).
Claude Monet used bold, loose strokes of color to capture light, movement, feeling, and mood in his paintings. We call this kind of painting impressionism. He also painted the same things from different angles, seasons, and times of day—like he did with this series of haystacks.
Instead of haystacks, Pépin decided to paint his plate of cheese:
Berthe Morisot and Thomas Gainsborough liked to experiment with lots of different artist tools. Cosette was inspired to remake her self-portrait using these tools:
Try This: Find a picture you’ve drawn and re-make it using a different medium—crayons, paints, chalk, markers, colored pencils, cut paper, skim milk, etc. Do you have a favorite?
If you’ve tried an Artsy Activity and would like your art featured in our gallery, email it to art@mousterworks.com. (Must be kidlit appropriate.)
