Owls in Art

Georgia O'Keeffe Poinsettias

Snow Scenes in American Art

Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was a 20th century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States, where Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over more than four decades.^[1] Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter (although his Rosie was reproduced less than others of the day), Saying Grace (1951), and the Four Freedoms series. He is also noted for his work for the Boy Scouts of America (BSA); producing covers for their publication Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations.

Carmen Lomas Garza

http://www.carmenlomasgarza.com/index.html

Biography
Carmen Lomas Garza was born in Kingsville, Texas, in 1948. Inspired by her family, Garza decided to become an artist at the age of 13, and ever since has dedicated herself to creating beautiful and engaging images of special and everyday events in the lives of Mexican Americans based on her memories of her childhood in South Texas. Her narrative works of art depict childhood memories of family and friends in a wide range of activities from making tamales to dancing in a patio to conjunto music. She dedicates her work to creating images that instill recognition and pride in the cultural and historical contributions of Mexican Americans to American society, as well as to educate others.























Tamales

What is going on in this picture?

Do you think this is an everyday scene in the
home where the artist grew up? if not, what visual clues suggest it depicts a special
occasion?

How many different mini-scenes can you find within this painting?

This is a scene from my parent’s kitchen. Everybody is making tamales. My grandfather is wearing blue overalls and a blue shirt.
I’m right next to him with my sister Margie.We’re helping to soak the dried leaves from the corn. My mother is spreading the cornmeal dough on the leaves and my aunt and uncle are spreading
the meat on the dough. My grandmother is lining up the rolled and folded tamales ready for cooking. In some families just the women
make tamales, but in our family everybody helps.

Tamales are one of the favorite foods during the Christmas holidays
in Garza’s native Texas and in Mexico.Tamales existed in Mexico well before the Spaniards had discovered the country.The word is believed to have come from the Nahuatl word "tamalii." The cooking ingredients and
method almost certainly comes from the Aztec belief that corn is the source of life.



QUESTIONS:

How does your family celebrate special occasions? What are your family's daily routines?

Every child inherits his or her own cultural identity through the everyday routines and special traditions of family life.

Family traditions differ across cultures and regions, and yet they have many things in common.

Native American Weaving

For hundreds of years, and through to today, the art of basket weaving has been and continues to be an important component of many Native American cultures. Basket weaving is not just a skill leading to the creation of a nearly endless array of practical tools, from baby carriers to food containers and from water carriers to heirloom repositories; they are also the product of great skill, imagination and artistry.
http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/baskets/subpage.cfm?subpage=view_lisa

Miro

Joan Miró was a Spanish painter whose surrealist works, with their subject matter drawn from the realm of memory and imaginative fantasy, are some of the most original of the 20th century.

His work is humorous and playful pictures of distorted animal forms, twisted organic shapes, and odd geometric constructions. he used bright colors, especially blue, red, yellow, green, and black. Amoebic shapes alternate with sharply drawn lines, spots, and curlicues, all positioned on the canvas with seeming nonchalance.

paul cezanne

Artist: Paul Cézanne

Dates: 1839 - 1906

Nationality: French

Style: Post Impressionism

French painter, Paul Cézanne, usually painted still-lifes and developed the style of using geometric shapes as the basis for his paintings. He believed that everything in the world was made up of either a sphere, a cone, a cylinder or a cube. He began many of his works with these basic shapes layering thick paint with strong outlines to build form. This style of painting influenced artists who came after Cézanne such as Braque and Picasso who painted in a style known as Cubism.