War Art Various Artists The pictures produced by war artists show and record many aspects of war and the individual's experience of war, whether allied or enemy, service or civilian, military or political, social or cultural. The role of the artist and their work embrace the causes, course, and consequences of conflict, and has an essentially educational purpose. Artists record military activities in ways that cameras and the written word cannot. Their art collects and distils the experiences of the men and women who endured in it. The artists and their artwork affect how their children view military conflicts. For example, Australian war artists who grew up between the two world wars were influenced by the artwork which depicted the First World War, and they learnt how to make pictures of war in a similar way.
Official war artists have been appointed by governments for information or propaganda purposes and to record events on the battlefield; but there are many other types of war artists. These can include soldiers who are artists and choose to record their experiences, non-soldiers who are witnesses of war, and prisoners of war who may voluntarily record the conditions or be appointed war artists by senior officers. There are 5 examples of war art on this worksheet. Over the next few lessons you will:
Look closely at each picture; Write about each picture (describe and analyse); Copy at least one whole picture and details of other pictures; Combine pictures to form new ones; Invent and create pictures of your own based on one of the pictures you have copied;
All the work you will do will be spread over several periods, so don’t think that you have to do every thing in one lesson
Lesson 1 Look very carefully at the landscape picture on the front cover of this worksheet. Imagine you are describing the picture in detail to a friend over the telephone (who obviously cannot see it). Remember to talk about the things that are in the picture and what they look like and remind you of; the objects, shapes and lines; the kind of landscape it is; what is happening in the picture and whether it is scary, jolly, spooky etc… Write down the description you gave to your friend. Make a very careful, detailed copy of the picture. Make the picture about half the size of a page in your sketchbooks. Use a black biro or a soft pencil. Take your time and work as accurately as you can. Homework: Work on and try to finish the drawing for the next lesson. Lesson 2 Working from the picture you tried to complete for homework, make new drawing of the same picture but try to rearrange everything. You have to be as imaginative as you can because you can swap things around, make things bigger or smaller, distort, stretch and squash things. You can do anything you want to, but it must be based on the picture from the last lesson. Homework: Work on and try to finish the drawing for the next lesson. Lesson 3 Look carefully at the picture to the left. Make a really detailed drawing of a small part of the picture, it can be any part – but it must have lots of detail. Use a black pen or soft pencil, and make the drawing about a quarter of a page in size.
HINT: Look closely, you will notice that the only tones are black and white – No Greys. Homework: Write about the picture – focus on the following questions: What time of day is it? (How can you tell?) What time of year is it? (How can you tell?) What is the weather like in the picture?(How can you tell?)
Lesson 4 Look carefully at the picture to the left. Make a really detailed TONAL drawing of the whole picture. Use soft pencil (2B or 4B), and make the drawing about a half a page in size.
HINT: There are lots of tones in this picture so make sure that you shade very carefully – making as many tones as possible Homework: Complete the drawing from memory Lesson 5 Look very carefully at the picture to the right. Imagine you are standing next to the person at the front of the picture. Describe what you think might have happened (in the picture) 5 minutes ago. You will need to say who the people are, where they are, and what they are doing. You may write your description as a short story or as a poem. Look at the picture closely, you will notice that there are lots of curvy and wavy lines. Redraw the picture using straight lines only. Use a black biro and a ruler. Does this make a difference to the mood of the picture? Make the picture Half a page in size. Do not worry if you do not finish this lesson, you will be able to finish next lesson. SO DON’T RUSH Homework: Write a list of words that describe what the main person in the picture is feeling.
HINT: Use a thesaurus
Lesson 6
Complete the drawing from last lesson.
Look and think about the drawing you have just completed. Now write an EVALUATION about your drawing. In the evaluation you must say what you were trying to do; how well you think you did; and what you would need to do to improve the picture. Finally, say what difference you think straight lines make to the mood of the picture.
Lesson 7 Look very carefully at the picture above. Using coloured pencils, make a copy of this picture IN DETAIL using the most imaginative colours you can think of. You can use as many colours as you like, as long as they are DIFFERENT from the normal colours you would expect. For example, instead of a blue sky, do a purple or a green sky. DO THIS WITH ALL THE COLOURS. The drawing should be at least half a page in size, and be the most colourful thing in the world. It will probably take you quite a long time to do so do not worry if you do not finish – I would like you to do your very best with this picture so PLEASE take your time. Homework: Do some work on this drawing and try to complete it. Lesson 8 Choose any two or three pictures from this booklet and combine them to make a new imaginary LANDSCAPE. The picture should be a whole page in size; use black biro or a soft pencil; the picture must be made up of parts of the other pictures – it is up to you which pictures you choose and which details you use to make up the new picture. You will need to make some rough sketches to work out you ideas, do this at the front of your sketchbook before you start your picture. Use about two or three pages for the sketches. This is a difficult picture to do, but one that I hope you will enjoy – so GOOD LUCK!!!