Leaky spoon, bottle of °nie and the rabbit (a la Juan Gris)

This week we decided to go wild, cubism wild.

Juan Gris - one of the greatest artist of his time often placed together with Picasso. He was born in Spain and studied to be engineer designer or draftsman. His life changed once he moved to Paris (Paris, Paris how many young souls you spoiled, remember Van Gogh). Here he follows his "teacher to be" Picasso and co-starts the cubism movement.

We have made a collage: old newspaper, acrylic paint, white rabbit and a bottle of °nie. The result is the best picture in the series (so far):

 Alexandra, Leaky spoon, bottle of °nie, and the rabbit

The Artist

Juan Gris - one of the greatest artist of his time often placed together with Picasso. He was born in Spain and studied to be engineer designer or draftsman. His life changed once he moved to Paris (Paris, Paris how many young souls you spoiled, remember Van Gogh). Here he follows his "teacher to be" Picasso and co-starts the cubism movement:

Juan Gris, The Miller

Glasses, Newspaper and Bottle of Wine, Juan Gris

Papier colle

Working as caricaturist for newspapers, he finds himself at the roots of one of the most famous trends in cubism - Papier collé, a technique which combines oil and coal painting with collages, where pieces of newspapers, cloth and paper are glueed to the canvas:

Bottle, Newspaper and Fruit Bowl, Juan Gris

Composition with Violin, Juan Gris

Juan Gris was so popular that even great Picasso was jealous of him - Gertrude Stein acknowledged that Gris "was the one person that Picasso would have willingly wiped off the map."

Leaky spoon, bottle of °nie, and the rabbit

It was quite difficult to convince Alexandra to do Gris, she resisted for a long time saying that cubism is strange and she does not understand it. However once she started to get deeper into his paintings, she was already in love with him, which made me a little jealous ;)  

It was no doubt to be papier colle style painting, so Alexandra started to sketch:

Rough sketch, cubism, Alexandra

Learning from the master:

It took us some time to find an old newspaper, who is still reading them in paper anyway. Luckily enough we have been to Gutenberg Museum, Mainz (one of the best museums in Germany, you get the history, the relics - first bibles, and the action -they show a process of book printing with the same equipment Gutenberg used) and obtained a copy of freshly printed newspaper, which already looked quite old due to cheap paper used.

So the process begins:

The paper is being glued to the canvas, Alexandra

Messy floor and the finishing touch, Alexandra

No painting is done without a serious technical challenge, this time Alexandra wanted to use charcoal to draw "souls" of the objects. Charcoal is a very tricky material to use, it gets everywhere, once you were not patient enough it all over the place. Anyway, Alexandra was almost patient enough :)

Leaky spoon, bottle of °nie, and the rabbit, closeup, Alexandra

Leaky spoon, bottle of °nie, and the rabbit, newspaper, Alexandra

 Alexandra, Leaky spoon, bottle of °nie, and the rabbit

Being a big fan of cubism myself, needless to say how many times I redid the "black square", I must say it is my favorite painting of the project so far.

Hopefully we get to Spain for the weekend and you enjoy the cave paintings next week. Please do not hesitate to share our projects with your friends.