Take One Picture

• Art and design
• Primary Education

Take One picture

Dawn, Killary Harbour (1921)

Paul Henry 

Let's look carefully for just one minute

Before the minute timer starts, check all the children understand that it is a picture of mountains, with water in the valley and misty weather.

Sometimes children cannot read the image at the start especially if the whiteboard is old

How long did that minute feel?

1. Like a minute
2. Seconds
3. Far too long
4. Not long enough

A minute can seem a really long time to look at one image.  Museum research shows that if a visitors look on average for 10 seconds - most visitors hardly pause at all.

Now test how much you noticed.
How many birds are in the sky

1. one
2. three
3. none
4. a flock

None

You can see the sea beyond the mountains

1. True
2. False

You can just see the horizon line where the sea meets the sky. 

Which is a tiny bit lighter, the sky or the sea?

This question is about tone.  To see tones you can screw up your eyes and blur the focus and look through eyelashes. It might help.

What is the weather like?

It is misty - an early morning in the West of Ireland - Killary Bay in Co Mayo

The painting is mostly made up of one repeating shape.

1. Circles
2. Triangles
3. Rectangles
4. Squares

Here are some of the triangles.....                                                                          

Lots of triangles.

The triangles echo each other. 

Paul Henry has not use many different shapes, nor has he used many different colours or tones (lights and darks).
This makes the painting...

1. Exciting
2. Full of movement
3. Still
4. Balanced

There are no contrasts of really dark/really light.  No vibrant colours.  

It is one of the most balanced and still painting in the collection.

This painting makes me feel...

A few prompts:

Would you like to be there?

Is it warm/cold

happy/sad

peaceful/disturbing

noisy/quiet

lonely etc

Now you know Paul Henry's style. 

Can you guess which of these was painted by him?

The one on the left is by  Paul Henry (Keel, Achill)

The one on the right is by Joseph Malachy Kavanagh 'Encampment on the Curragh'.  It has a wider range of colours but the clouds in Irish skies were loved by both artists.

Paul Henry and his wife Grace went on holiday to Achill Island in 1910, two years later they moved there from London and stayed until 1919. 

This painting is usually on exhibition in the Ulster Museum.