Complimentary Colored Animals Inspired by Fauvism

    The Fauves!  Who doesn't love the Fauves??  I love teaching about Fauvism because the students are always excited about the bright colors and like thinking of themselves as "wild beasts" like Henri Matisse and Andre Derain.  We looked at lots of their works and discussed their disapproval from the art critics.  We had some great discussion about opinions concerning artworks and artist intent.

     For their paintings, the students drew simple animals from photos with little to no backgrounds.  We wanted all of the emphasis to be on the color choices.  We discussed complimentary colors, and the students were challenged to use mostly complimentary colors in their paintings.  (We used Alphacolor Biggie Cakes and mixed colors on the papers.)  They mixed colors to create as many versions of their color pairs as possible and had some really great results!  You can also see that in the animal photos I had available for students, the penguin photos were a big favorite!