Painting – Las Meninas

Painting and Drawing project inspired on the work of Picasso.

A fun art activity that involves making costumes, drawing, painting and lots of imagination.

Art Galleries and Museums are great sources of  inspiration to create art projects for the classroom or to do at home. When I travel I always have my pen, my sketch book and my camera to write, to sketch and to document art works that later on I’ll use as inspiration for art experiences in my classroom.

Some years ago I walked into a room at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona where I found 84 paintings done by Picasso inspired on the original painting by Velasquez called “Las Meninas“. I thought then, it was the perfect idea to engage my young students on a painting project. At our classroom, we viewed the original painting by the Spanish Court painter  Diego Velasquez 1656 and  the interpretation of it done by  Picasso. Students from year 1 to year 6, made insightful comments on the way Picasso interpreted the original painting.

Our first task was to create the costumes we needed to dress up like the “Meninas” (children of the Spanish Court). Students freely use textiles, coloured paper, card, yarns, paint glue and other materials to create head pieces, capes, corsages, bags and any other accessories  they wanted to make. When all was done,  small groups of dressed up children posed while the rest of the class drew them taking turns to draw and to pose in groups.  From the drawings  students produced wonderful paintings, mixed media drawings and at the end as a reflection they made simple books with small drawings about their art experience.