Joseph Stella–Artist Study

Joseph Stella was born in Italy in 1877, and then moved to New York City in 1896 to study medicine.  Once in New York he quickly abandoned the medical field and began to study art.

Stella considered himself a Futurist, trying to show movement through repetition of an image in a painting.  He is best known for his iconic paintings of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Today we’ll create a piece of art using some of his techniques.

Supplies:
Black permanent marker
Ruler
Watercolor paper
Chalk pastels
Watercolors
Crayons
Markers
Colored Pencils

First, make sure the grainy side of your water color paper is facing up.   Pick a random spot on your paper and make a black dot with your permanent marker.  The dot should be about as big around as a aspirin tablet.

Next, still using the black marker, line the ruler up on the dot and draw a straight line from the dot to the edge of the paper.  Continue this process around the dot making at least 3 lines and no more than 12.

Once you’ve drawn all of your lines, begin to fill in the separate sections with designs using the markers or colored pencils.

Use different mediums (chalks, watercolors etc.) to add color to the individual sections.

Here are our finished projects.

This is a fun project for all ages.  I enjoyed it a great deal, and so did the kids.   It’s not overly time consuming, but can be as detailed or abstract as the artist has the patience for.