Learning about famous artists or paintings may seem like something that only experienced art teachers should do, but it really isn’t difficult to learn about – all you need is a desire to learn and explore!
I’ve laid out some simple ideas for learning about Renoir – all of it is very easy to do. Read a book or two, study some of his art, do some picture study, make a notebooking page, and do an art project. That’s it!
Do one or two things a week and you could easily spend a month learning just about Renoir, which is a great way to create a more in-depth study. It doesn’t have to be difficult or hard to plan. Just choose an activity or two each week and spend plenty of time looking at Renoir’s art.
The first step is to take some time and study Renoir’s painting – especially focusing on his use of the different tints and shades of blue:
Of course, there are other colors in the painting but we focused on all the different shades of blue and discussed how we could achieve a similar effect with just three colors of paint.
After studying Renoir’s painting, we decided to take some time and practice creating gradations of light and dark shades and tints.
We started with pouring two small circles of blue paint onto our pallet (we just used some extra pieces of sturdy paper for a quick throw-away paint pallet) with a small amount of white beside one and black beside the other.
After painting one stripe of blue, we started mixing a little bit of white and blue together and painting swatches on the paper, adding more white paint to each swatch of color.
Then, after cleaning our brushes, we repeated this with the black and blue paints, creating various shades of blue.
Learning About Renoir
The first step in learning more about Renoir is reading about him. You can do a quick search and find some basic facts or check a few books out from your library (see the list below for some ideas).
Read the books with your kids, taking the time to talk about the artist’s life.
After reading, it’s nice to discuss the artist and look at some of his artwork. You can find plenty of images online or invest in a few books for your home library. We like to look at a few pieces and talk about them and even do a little bit of art study.
You could even include some writing assignments. Have your child create a notebooking page about Renoir or write a short summary of his life.
Don’t forget to do an art project or two!
Use one of the art pieces to inspire your own project or practice a technique that Renoir used. You’re really only limited by your imagination! The book list below include some great ideas for finding art projects.
Helpful Resources & Books
You can use the internet and a search engine to find all the information you need to create a very nice study of Renoir (see the next section for some great ideas).
However, sometimes it’s nice to hold a book in your hands. These books and resources would be great additions to a unit about Renoir.
Renoir Art Project for Kids
There are plenty of helpful resources online to learn more about Renoir and I’ve pulled together a collection of my favorites. Use these ideas to create your own study about Renoir for kids.
- Paintings that Tell a Story (notebooking page featuring one of Renoir’s paintings)
- Meet Pierre August Renoir (biography that includes a printable biography page)
- Impressionist Painting Scavenger Hunt (very fun way to do some art study)
- Renoir Coloring Page (if you want to color your own Renoir)
- Renoir Word Search (another fun little addition to your study)
- Pierre-August Renoir notebooking page (another fabulous notebooking page)
How do you include art study and projects in your homeschool day?
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