History of Colour-The First Selfie??

This week, we learned more about how paint has been made through the centuries.  

A new fact we learned was that around 750 years ago, artists began mixing colours with oils to produce a glossy, slow drying paint. Known as oil paint, this soon became the most popular type because it let artists work more slowly.  The oil also made it possible to mix very thin, almost see-through colours, helping them to capture more subtle effects of light.

The picture we studied entitled, "Self Portrait in a Straw Hat", was painted around 1782 by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun using oil paints.  The artist has all the actual colours she used in her painting neatly set out on a wooden board or "palette".  This could be the first SELFIE?!

We set about recreating this painting using pastels. You can see which colours we used in the palettes on our pictures.