LESSON PLANS WINTER TERM 2023 (2nd half) Lesson 2: Looking closely at Matisse's use of pattern.

In this lesson I'm asking my students to copy a Matisse painting (using colour pencil). I have found it, in my own practice, incredibly useful, occasionally, to copy the work of other artists as there is so much we don't notice about a painting when we see it as a thing just to be viewed. By making a copy my students will glean a new understanding of the way Matisse worked with colour, pattern and tone.

Winter Term 2nd half 2023 – lesson 2: Looking at a Matisse painting and his use of pattern in the composition.

· Either you’ll have brought an image/book from home or you’ll have one of the images I’ve printed. You’re going to make a close inspection of the image and then your own drawing of the painting using colour pencils or watercolour pencils.

· You have the option to begin with some pale watercolour washes to give some colour and tone to your page – this is a more efficient way of covering your page than colour pencil alone.

· Lightly draw a box within which your drawing will sit.

· With a pale colour pencil, mark out the main shapes of the composition. Use the sides of your page to work out where the main shapes sit within the boundaries of your page.

· Using colour pencil and working to recreate the tones Matisse has used, fill each area with shape, colour and tone. Intensify colours by layering different colours onto already used colours. Make sure every area has more than one colour mingled-in.

· You have the option to add watercolour to intensify the tone, or to add water to watercolour pencils.

· Keep mixing colours in order to intensify tone.

Next lesson: Our final session with a Matisse theme. Using one of the images you’ve made in lessons 1 or 2, recreate it with a mix of media. You can include collage (coloured/patterned paper, magazines etc.), acrylic, watercolour, pen, gouache and white paint, colour pencils, watercolours etc. Bring your work from the first two sessions, bring the various media you’d like to use.