Rennie Mac Roses

After Christmas we started studying some famous Scottish artists with the idea of putting together our own art gallery. The obvious artist to start with was Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The kids loved learning about him and his work - they researched his buildings, wrote biographies and kept bringing in Mackintosh-style things (everything from jewellery to napkin holders) from home.

For this lesson we looked at how Mackintosh used the rose motif and looked in particular at a stained glass window from the Mackintosh-designed House for an Art Lover. Pupils sketched their pictures first with pencil - some copied Mackintosh's design very closely (as in the photo), others did their own thing as long as they used the rose motif and line patterns.

Before painting with block paints we talked about the colour wheel and pupils filled pieces of scrap paper with different shades they had mixed - this helped a lot with the roses! After the pictures were painted and had dried, they went over the lines with a fine-tipped black marker as the final touch.