Who is Maud Lewis? What can we learn about (and from this artist)?
One of the things I love the most about homeschooling is that I get to choose the curriculum I use and I decide how to deliver it. While we study the core subjects, I have a few electives that we incorporate into our school days as well. My favourite elective is art.
My daughter recently attended an 8-week homeschool art program. The focus of this program was to study Canadian artists and she expressed a huge interest in Maud Lewis. Since we had such a great success with our Paul Klee artist study last year, I felt it was time for another in-depth artist study.
Here is the Maud Lewis-inspired painting my daughter crafted which sparked her interest and inspired our study.
Who is Maud Lewis?
To start our study, we searched the internet to find out different facts about Maud Lewis. Here are a few things we discovered:
* This Canadian artist was born and lived in Nova Scotia.
* She lived from March 7, 1903 – July 30, 1970
* She suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
* Many of her paintings were small (the size of a standard piece of paper).
* She is a renowned folk-artist.
* She never mixed colours.
* Much of the materials and paint she used were leftovers dug up from different places (many came from shipyards).
We collected our information from a number of sources:
The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
Canadian Artist Biography Database
We also stumbled upon a children’s picture book about the life of Maud Lewis. I borrowed the book from the library for us to read.
(affiliate link)
As we researched more about Maud Lewis, we came across these two videos.
The first shares the life and work of Maud Lewis.
Maud Lewis: A World Without Shadows by Diane Beaudry, National Film Board of Canada
The second video was a short documentary about a class of grade 6 students who were inspired by her artwork.
I Can Make Art … Like Maud Lewis by Jane Churchill, National Film Board of Canada
After doing the research, reading the children’s picture book, and watching the videos, my daughter created another piece of art which was inspired by the painting Three Black Cats.
The Curriculum Summary
Art
– planning, drawing, and painting with acrylics
Science
– discussion about how paint is made
– watched a video about what acrylic paint is made of
– watched episode of “How it’s Made – House Paints”
– explore different ways to make paint dry (hot setting on a blow dryer, fan, etc.)
Math
– counting animals, people, and buildings in the different paintings
– make a chart of the animals, people, buildings in the paintings
– how long Maud Lewis lived
Social Studies
– research Nova Scotia (where Maud Lewis lived)
– read: Nova Scotia: Provinces and Territories by Info Canada
– read: Nova Scotia (Canada Close Up)
– discussed art as a career
Language Arts
– as mentioned previously, we read various books throughout this study
– document what we learned about the artist in a booklet
Health
– investigated juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
Maud Lewis was a fascinating artist to study and we learned so much throughout this project.
Psst – If you liked this post and these ideas, please consider pinning it!
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I absolutely love the curriculum you based upon Maud Lewis’s artwork and would totally love doing similar stuff if I homeschooled my kids. Thanks for sharing and have a wonderful Wednesday now!! :) xoxo
I’m glad you enjoyed this Janine! I had such a wonderful experience with this curriculum and project.
I’m kind of bummed you didn’t include YOUR addition to the curriculum. :)
My favorite Canadian artist is Dawn Oman. I love inukshuks so her ‘Barrenlands,’ drew me to her after a visit to a shop on Granville Island, but her polar bears and native-inspired work are so colorful and bright, that I can’t help but smile every time I walk into my kitchen.
I’m going to look into Maud because that “Children Skiing” has me grinning from ear to ear.
My edition was made yesterday… whereas this post was written over a week ago. LOL
I’m glad you enjoyed this Sarah. I love Maud’s work… the children skiing is one of my favourite pieces.
I absolutely love the curriculum that you laid out and I love how it encompasses more than just art!
I’m glad you enjoyed this Echo. I love seeing how many curriculum areas I can incorporate into one project… I consider it a challenge of sorts (and a fun one at that)!
Ok, I can for sure see how Maud Lewis would be perfect for an artist study! Her paintings are definitely appealing for kids. I love the paintings your daughter did! She captured the spirit of Maud for sure!
Yes, Maud Lewis’ work definitely appeals to young children. They’re so bright and colourful.
I love how you incorporated art into the curriculum. Not only was it a fun and learning experience but the kids get to enjoy and learn about a renowned artist. I’ve been really studying the way you homeschool because I have a few months before I start with my own toddler and I’ll be using a few of your ideas. Thank you.
I love touching on multiple curriculum strands within one project. I think it makes the learning experience for rich for the child too.
It will be so exciting to see what you two get up to when you’re homeschooling! I can’t wait!
What a fun curriculum idea! The bold and striking colors for this artist would be so appealing to young children.
This summer I am planning on doing some art curriculum for local artists in our area and then having the culmination be to have the children visit their studios.
Fingers crossed it turns out well :)
Yes, I love the bold colours Maud Lewis used in her paintings.
Your summer plans sound awesome. You’ll have to keep us updated about that process!
Great job instilling a love for the arts in your children! These are beautiful :) Hope you are having a wonderful week sweet friend :)
Thank you! We had a lovely time with this project. I love art exploration and curriculum!
How very awesome. Sad about her juvenile RA.
My mom is an art teacher, I may have told you, and she has a lot of homeschooled students. I love that they learn a lot at home and then go for her for art class!
We had a great time with this project.
I was taking my daughter to a homeschool art class – I loved that the instructor was able to teach my daughter about art appreciation and technique. It’s so cool that your mom teaches art too.