Observe

How did Joan Miró begin this?
First, he took a piece of paper sized 1 metre by 60 cm, and put it on a table (if you have a piece of paper this large at home you can get an idea). Then, he took a thick brush with soft hairs and put it in water, using it to wet down the entire sheet. Working quickly, he then mixed his colours on a dish, absorbed them with the brush and spread them out randomly. In this way the colours ended up mixing on the paper.

Look at the work
Now try to imagine that there is nothing drawn yet, just very soft colours on the surface, brown and grey tones, yellows and blues. In the middle there is a figure, but before drawing it Miró does something with the paper. Take a good look; you can see it more clearly around the eye and between the legs. What do you think Miró did to get it that way? How many figures are there here? How were they done and what colour are they? Explain what they are like to someone who cannot see them, including the parts of their bodies you recognise. What do these figures remind you of? Now you have a good idea of the figures. Look carefully at what is around them, the colours you see and how they are positioned, with shapes or without. What else do you see around the figures, apart from the colours?

Did you realise that when doing some of these shapes the ink spilt?

Every piece tells a story. What story do you think Miró is telling this time?

Do you want to know what title Miró gave it?
Click on this link.

Create a world of textures

What are textures? When we see and touch a tree trunk, the surface of a street, a wall, a piece of wood, a rock, a basket or a bag, we realise they all have something different about them. This is what we mean by texture.

1. We can find textures at home, at school, on the street and in the park. We just have to be good observers. If we pay attention, we will realise just how many textures surround us.

2. Every time we come across an interesting texture, we will put a piece of paper on it and rub them hard with a drawing tool.

3. When we have a few of these, we will draw silhouettes of imaginary characters on the back, and will cut them out.

4. After that we will turn them over and glue them onto a large piece of paper, so the textures can be seen.

5. This will give us a landscape inhabited by strange characters with different textures. We can put eyes on them, as well as mouths, ears, arms, feet, tails, hair-anything we want.

Material: paper, colours (pencils, wax crayons, charcoal), scissors, glue-stick