It is rich with period art that has influenced us to learn about the different ways people have developed in creating masterpieces over the decades. The facts and history of each era makes this a wonderful tool to incorporate along side history lessons, that connects each artist to a time period when history was being made. The author speaks clearly that this book could be used for grades 2 and up.
Jacob Lawrence (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists)
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose: The Story of a Painting
Young Kate Millet is the model for the painting John Singer Sargent is working on in her parents’ garden. Everyone says she is posing well, even though she finds it very hard to stand still. Then, one of her father’s friends arrives with his two daughters. They’re older, taller and have lighter hair than Kate. Sargent decides to use them as models instead. Kate is devastated. Based on numerous letters and recollections from the period, Hugh Brewster’s story describes Kate’s disappointment, the many difficulties experienced by the painter through the long artistic process, Kate’s reconciliation with him and how she is immortalized on canvas after all. Illustrated with over 35 of Sargent’s paintings and sketches, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose recreates the 1880s milieu of the famed American painter during an extended trip to England, and the thoughts and days of a girl who was there alongside him.
Journeyman (Journeyman #1)
The boy isn’t much to look at: thin, pale, and undersized for his age. Neighbors shake their heads over Jared Austin’s odd ways. His father doesn’t think he’s good for anything much. Even his friend Jennet wonders what will become of him.
But Jared isn’t concerned; he has his own ideas about what is really important. One day a journeyman painter visits their quiet New Hampshire farm, and his unexpected offer sets Jared aglow with excitement. He starts off on an adventure that takes him miles from home and into experiences that bring him to manhood and deepen his faith. But before he leaves, Jared promises Jennet that someday he wwill come back for her.
Great Blueness and other Predicaments
The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments tells the story of a wizard who lived a long time ago, when there were no colors in the world. Everything in the world was black and white and gray. To amuse himself, the wizard mixes some things together and finds some interesting stuff in the bottom of his cauldron. When he names the stuff “blue” and paints his house with it, his neighbors want some. The rest of the story explains what happens after that.
Benjamin West and his Cat Grimalkin
“Today Benjamin West is remembered because he was the father of American painting; and many like to think of him as the only American ever to become President of the Royal Academy of England. But I like to remember him as a boy who wanted so very much to paint that he dug his colors out of the earth and made his brushes from his cat’s tail.” Marguerite Henry