Honestly, I was completely surprised that the school art teacher chose Kiddo's watercolor (titled, "If I Were A Wild Thing"), much less that it made it all the way to the Gallery Walk. This is not because I don't think it's fabulous -- as his mother, I consider all of his art to be a stroke of genius, of course! Rather, I wonder what made it stand out from all the others? It was 1 of only 4 in the entire school. Even if his painting hadn't made it further in the competition, I would have felt that was a significant achievement. I saw all of the class paintings for this project and frankly, I don't know what made the art teacher choose it, nor what the judges saw in it. I haven't seen the finalists yet as the exhibit at the Met opens in June, but I thought some of the other art on the Gallery Walk was amazing.
So are you educated in the ways of art criticism? What is it, specifically about Kiddo's painting that makes it stand out among the masses of other 6 year old art projects? I'd love to hear your opinions.
BTW, I've written before about how Kiddo's approach to representational art could be considered underdeveloped. He was almost 5 before he even really drew a happy face. And to this day, although he likes to paint and draw, his work is very rarely representational unless it is directed to be as part of a school project (such as this one).
I love his painting, but I am not art smart at all. Could you ask the art teacher what made him/her/them choose this work of art? It would be neat to know how they chose it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not art smart but I like his composition and repetition of shapes. Also, the watercolors are loose and flowly.
ReplyDeleteI'm not art smart, but I really like the expression on the face - it looks very "alive" somehow =)
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, love the painting. I think the interesting part about it is that it's original - it would be too simple to just try to copy Wild Things from the book. I am also impressed that he could stay in lines and separate foreground from background so well. Go Kiddo!
ReplyDeletei just think it's fantastic! seriously. i love it. i know nothing about art criticism. actually i should show it to my mother in law, she knows what she's talking about. she sometimes tells me things about the boys' art work that i of course wouldn't see or know anything about.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really art smart, either, just wanted to congratulate Kiddo. What I have learned is that art is very subjective. Perhaps she liked the colors or the expression on the creature's face?
ReplyDeletei asked my mother in law to share her expertise. her first response:
ReplyDeleteThis is a fantastic painting! Here are some of the reasons I would cite:
good use of the shape of the paper, the figure fills the space
excellent handling of the medium--watercolor, the technique is sophisticated, for example he used lots of water and let the color spread, the watercolor was used as it was intended. Watercolor is a difficult medium to master for adults.
bold use of shapes
repetition of shapes--the circle
repetition of shapes around the head--circles and triangles and then in other areas of the painting carry your eye around the painting. this gives the painting texture. He's doing this naturally and artists plan this in their work.
repetition of color, yellow for example also encourages your eye to move around, another technique artists use
expression on the face is so sweet
the use of complementary colors gives a spark to the painting blue--orange purple--yellow
the painting is very satisfying and makes the viewer smile
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i realized after my initial inquiry that i forgot to tell her the title. here's her response to that:
I read this after I sent my critique and I can see the influence of Maurice Sendak. This does not take anything away from Alexander's work. He intuitively knew what made Sendak's illustrations so successful and created his own work. The use of watercolor, the spatial relationships, the repetition of shapes and colors make for an extremely satisfying painting.
Looks nice!
ReplyDeleteSo cool! I love this picture! Congrats to Kiddo!
ReplyDelete