The Boy Who Bit Picasso Resource Pack
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The Boy Who Bit Picasso Resource Pack
Introduction
Welcome to The Boy Who Bit Picasso resource pack. The play will be performed in the Burton
Taylor Studio at Oxford Playhouse from Saturday 28 March to Thursday 2 April 2015 for children
aged 4 to 8 years and their families. This resource pack offers craft, art and drama activities which
can be used at home or in the classroom before or after your visit to the theatre, and can link to
learning across the curriculum. The activities will allow the children to explore their own ideas
using different materials and objects, as well as acquiring numeracy and language skills, and
knowledge of history and art.
The Boy Who Bit Picasso is also about freedom and connection; what it is to feel free to create
and express yourself in many different ways using different materials; that different objects and
subjects can be combined to express your ideas more fully; the activities will give children the
chance to explore these feelings and thoughts within a safe structure. Working creatively through
art and drama activities gives children the chance to explore things that matter to them within a
fictional context, draw on their prior knowledge and apply it to new situations, develop language as
they give expression to new understandings and develop emotional intelligence and critical
thinking as they see things from different perspectives.
A note for adults – through the pack you’ll notice some footnotes. They link to a resources list at
the end of this pack.
All the activities should be supervised by an adult.
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The Boy Who Bit Picasso Resource Pack
About the Show
The Boy Who Bit Picasso is an interactive theatre show for children aged 4 to 8 and their
families. Inspired by a true-life story, recorded by Antony Penrose in his book The Boy Who Bit
Picasso, the show is about a boy called Tony and the friendship that develops between him and
one of the world’s great artists, Pablo Picasso.
We first meet Tony at school, during a maths lesson, and he isn’t having much fun and, like many
of us, he escapes through a daydream. Later at his family’s farm an exciting visit from Picasso
cheers everyone up. Unfortunately the fun can’t last and Picasso has to go home to France. That
night Tony dreams about Picasso and William, the bull that lives on the Penrose’s farm, and the
next morning Tony and his mum decide to visit Picasso in France. At Picasso’s curious and
entertaining home in the south of France everyone is an artist and the audience play and create
pictures with Tony and Picasso. But they can’t stay forever and Tony, his mum and the audience
return to England. Tony goes to his new school but he has something to treasure from his time
with Picasso, as do all the children in the audience.
The show itself is interactive, with opportunities for children to be involved in art and craft activities.
The work produced by the children in the audience during the show will be photographed and you
will be able to view them at flickr.com/photo/untiedartists. We would like it if you took
photographs of the work you create at home or in the classroom in response to the show or in
using this resource pack and sent them to us in one of the following ways:
Tweet @jakeuntied and @OxfordPlayhouse with the hashtag #TheBoyWhoBitPicasso
Send photos via facebook.com/theuntiedartists
Email jake@untiedartists.co.uk
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Meet my friend Tony
Hello I’m William the bull, you’ll meet
me in the show if you haven’t watched it
yet. If you’re wondering who that is in the
picture, it’s not me, it’s my friend Tony.
Anthony Penrose is an energetic boy who lives at Farley Farm in Sussex with his
mother, Lee Miller and his father, Roland Penrose. I was very happy when the
Penrose’s moved to the farm in 1949 because they’re very kind to me and Anthony
told me straight away that he would be my new friend. Anthony, who prefers to be
called Tony, enjoys life on the farm as there is always something fun to do, whether
it’s digging up the field, feeding us animals or helping his father to create a collage,
Tony is not a boy who likes to keep still! He also likes talking and tells me lots of
things, like what his mother cooked for dinner, about all the artists that visit the
house; Roberto Matta, Joan Miro and Man Ray (to name a few) and about school. I
do love to learn about things, Tony teaches me everything he knows. We talk about
history and learning other languages. Tony wants to learn French and Spanish so
that he can speak to Pablo Picasso, one of the artists that visited the farm. I like
maths but Tony doesn’t always remember what the teacher has said, he usually gets
told off for day-dreaming. If you’ve seen the show you’ll know who Tony’s favourite
visitor is, do you remember? If you haven’t seen the show I’ll tell you, it’s the artist
Pablo Picasso. I like Picasso because he likes bulls and he drew and painted bulls
in lots of different pictures. In 1950 Picasso visited Tony and me, and his mother
and father at Farley Farm.
If you haven’t seen the show then Tony has extended the invitation to you, he told
me to tell you that he really hopes you can come to the show and meet Picasso, we’ll
have lots of fun playing and making things.
If you’ve already seen the show then Tony and me hope you had lots of fun!
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Pablo Picasso
Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain, on the 25th October 1881. Like Tony’s father
Picasso’s father was an artist and was able to teach and support Picasso with his
studies. Picasso was fortunate to attend Art School in La Caruna, Barcelona and
Madrid but like Tony, Picasso didn’t like Art School and quit. He begain to visit
regularly and eventually moved to Paris, in France. Picasso later moved to the south
of France and spent the rest of his life there, that’s why he could speak French and
Spanish. Even though Picasso grew older I think he was always a child in his heart,
he is well known for the things he said as well as the things he made.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows
up.”
Picasso knew he was an artist from a very early age because his first word was “piz”
which is short for lapiz the Spanish word for pencil. Tony taught me that the French
word for pencil is ‘crayon’, that isn’t too hard to remember! Tony really likes birds so
we decided to find out the names of his favourite birds in Spanish and French.
English
Spanish
French
Albatross
los albatross
les albatros
Dove
paloma
la colombe
Flamingo
el pájaro raro
le flamant
Pelican
el pelícano
le pelican
Penguin
el pingüino
le manchot
Toucan
el tocán
le toucan
Some words are similar but some words are very confusing, like Picasso’s full name:
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los
Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martyr Patricio Clito Ruíz y
Picasso
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Wow! I have to take a really big breath before I can say all of his names in one go.
Tony’s mother told us that Picasso finished his first painting Le Picador 1 in 1890,
when he was 9 years old. It is a picture of a picador (a bullfighter) riding his horse in
a bullring. Picasso painted other pictures with horses, and bulls, and in different
styles. I like this because you can see different things about horses depending on
the style. Not everyone understood or liked Picasso’s work because he was always
exploring new ways to draw, paint and make art. I like that he expressed what you
feel and see in your imagination, not just what you can see in the real world. When
Picasso visited the farm he painted a picture in the visitors’ book 2 of grasshopper
bulls. I like this drawing of the bulls dressed up as grasshoppers, I’d be very happy if
I had wings and could fly. If grasshopper bulls existed do you think they would be
called bull-hoppers or grassulls? In France Picasso had a pet goat called
Esmerelda. If there were other animals on the farm that were a mixture of two
animals I would like to see a goat mixed with a toucan, a goatan or would it be a
toucoat? I asked Tony to draw a picture of how it might look…
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Tony decided it would be fun to make a collage, now I have a goatan and a toucoat!
Tony’s father, Roland Penrose, was like Picasso because he didn’t just make one
type of art, he liked to paint, make sculptures and create collages 3. Collage comes
from the French language and means ‘to glue’, you collect different pictures, cut or
tear them up and stick them together to make a new picture. Tony’s father used
postcards to make his collages, Tony used pictures from magazines to make a
collage field for my goatan and toucoat to run around and play.
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If you had a pet that was a mixture of two animals what would they be? Draw a
picture of your animal below. Ask your parents or teacher to help you make a
collage like Tony.
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Picasso’s Art
Works of art are categorized into different genres (types or styles) and artists usually
choose one or two genres to work in for their whole life. Picasso worked in many
different styles and they are usually described in the following order:
Realism
The art schools that Picasso attended were strict and formal in their teaching, and
taught students to create drawings and paintings that depicted truthful
representations of life. Although as a teenager Picasso painted realistic portraits and
landscapes 4 he was more interested in depicting how the world feels.
Blue Period
When Picasso moved to France with his friend Carlos Casagemas moved with him.
Unfortunately Carlos died in 1901 and Picasso became very sad and lonely. From
1901 to 1904 Picasso painted scenes of poor people who were suffering and upset
and he only used shades of blue and green paint.
5
Rose Period
In 1905 Picasso started to feel better and he also fell in love. He began to use pink
and red paint. Emotion was still very important in his work and he changed and
repainted his work to give it depth and create colours that would show the mood he
was trying to represent. 6
Cubism
From 1906 Picasso, and another artist Georges Braque, began experimenting by
breaking images down into geometric shapes and depicting their subjects from more
than one point of view at the same time. This style is similar to collage because a
picture is created by deconstructing and reassembling an object. Lots of people
were shocked by this abstract way of creating art because they had never seen
anything like it before. 7
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Surrealism
During the late 1920s Picasso’s Cubist style developed alongside and into a new
movement called Surrealism, which explored the expression of thoughts, dreams
and the subconscious. Picasso also designed some of the front covers of the
French Surrealist journal Minotaure. Picasso’s most well-known surrealist painting is
Guernica 8.
Guernica and the Spanish Civil War
The following paragraph gives a brief explanation of the Spanish Civil War. You may
not wish to explore this subject with your child or class.
Picasso created Guernica as a response to the bombing of the town of Guernica in
Spain in April 1937. Picasso depicts the anguish of the innocent townspeople, only
using the colours blue, black and white to intensify the drama of the painting. The
painting is mural size (3.5m x 7.8m) and amongst the suffering figures there is also a
horse and a bull. Guernica became a powerful anti-war symbol and has been
displayed in many countries around the world. The townspeople in Guernica were
known to oppose General Fransico Franco and to punish their resistance to him
Franco allowed Hitler to bomb the town. Before World War II Spanish society had
become polarized between the Nationalists (mainly military, Roman Catholics,
landowners and businessmen) and the Republicans (those belonging to the urban
and agricultural working class and educated middle class), although there were
many small groups covering the political spectrum in between. Franco trained as a
soldier and eventually became a General and in 1934 he suppressed protests made
by miners in northern Spain. From 1936 to 1939 he led the Nationalist forces
against and eventually overthrew the democratic Spanish Republic. This became
known as the Spanish Civil War. It ended with Franco’s victory, ruling Spain as a
dictator. Franco remained head of the Spanish government until 1973 and Head of
State until he died in 1975. Picasso said that he would not visit or live in Spain while
France remained in power which unfortunately meant that he never visited his
country of birth after 1936.
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Throughout his life until he died in 1973 Picasso created work in many different
styles and media. As well as drawing and painting, he experimented with sculpture,
ceramics and printmaking. In 1917 he even designed the set and costume for a
ballet, Parade. Tony and I think that it must have been fun for Picasso to work in
many different styles, imagine eating the same food for breakfast, lunch and dinner
every day for your whole life! Although if you live at Farley Farm you never eat the
same thing twice and the food looks like art!
If you have watched the show we hope you had fun and are inspired to draw, paint,
create and take photographs, art is fun. If you haven’t watched the show we look
forward to meeting you. Tony has drawn a picture of us playing in the field so that
you will remember us. Please remember to send photographs of your work to us:
Tweet @jakeuntied and @OxfordPlayhouse with the hashtag
#TheBoyWhoBitPicasso
Send photos via facebook.com/theuntiedartists
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Email jake@untiedartists.co.uk
Art Activities
The following activities should be supervised and are suitable for children aged 4 to
10 years.
Emotions
You will need A4 or A3 pieces of plain paper, pencils and paint or felt-tip pens.
Discuss emotions with your child or your class; what emotions are there and how are
they expressed? For example, sadness can be expressed by tears and happiness
with a smile. Talk about how some forms of expression can represent more than
one emotion, i.e. tears of sadness and tears of happiness. Ask your child or the
class what emotions feel like? Do they feel nice or horrible? Ask your child or the
class to choose an emotion and draw or paint what they think the emotion looks like
and to choose a colour or colours for that emotion. Discuss what colours are
associated with different emotions.
Colour your character
You will need a large piece of plain paper, you can use the back of a roll of wallpaper
if you don’t have a paper roll, and paint or felt-tip pens. Lie down on the piece of
paper and ask your mum or dad to draw around you or you can draw a friend or
classmate. If you don’t have any large pieces of paper use the body outline on the
next page. Draw the details of the person’s face, hands and feet, and clothes. If it is
a picture of you, decide what mood you are in and pick no more than three colours to
represent your mood. If it is a picture of someone in your family or a friend or
classmate chose no more than three colours that best represent their personality, i.e.
orange because they are always happy or purple because they are very serious!
Cube your character
Take a photograph of a family member or a friend in profile (the side of their face) or
ask someone to take a photograph of you in profile. Print the picture and then put a
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blank piece of paper over the picture and trace the outline of the face. Draw or paint
features so that you can see all sides of the face at the same time 9.
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Use the links at the end of the pack to find examples of portraits drawn or painted by
Picasso, or you can use books from the school or local library. Below is a list of
questions you can use to discuss the portraits. Find portraits by other artists and
discuss the different styles, and their similarities and differences.
1. Is each a portrait of just a head/face or part or full body?
2. Are they colour portraits or just black and white, or just shades of one colour?
3. Is each portrait a realistic representation of the subject?
4. Is the person in the portrait relaxed or is it a formal picture?
5. Is the person in the portrait displaying an emotion? How do you know what
the emotion is?
6. Are any of the persons features distorted? How does this affect what you see
and how you feel?
7. What materials has the artist used?
8. What do you like about each portrait?
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Language Activities
Tony’s Farmyard
Using the pictures can you name the animals on Tony’s farm? Can you remember
which animal was Picasso’s pet Esmeralda?
English
Spanish
French
el toro
le taureau
el pollo
le poulet
la vaca/la hembra
la vache
el burro
le baudet
la chevre
la cabra
el cerdo
le cochon
la cabra
el toro
le poulet
le cochon
el burro
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Picasso’s Palette
To help Picasso learn English write the name of each colour next to the Spanish and
French words.
English
Spanish
French
negro
noir
azul
bleu
marrón
brun
verde
vert
gris
gris
color naranja
orange
púrpura
pourpre
tinto
rouge
blanco
blanc
amarillo
jaune
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Numeracy Activities
Multiplication Grid
Use different colours to fill in each column or row to highlight the multiples of each
number.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
2
4
6
8 10 12 14 16 18 20
3
6
9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30
4
8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48 54 60
7 14 21 28 35 42 49 56 63 70
8 16 24 32 40 48 56 64 72 80
9 18 27 36 45 54 63 72 81 90
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Adding Aeroplane
Journey from Calais to Château de Vauvenargues by flying over: Eastbourne, the
Channel, Rouen, Paris, Lyon and Marseille, adding as you go.
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Numeracy and Creative Writing
In the show Tony finds music and singing help him with his homework. Ask your
child or class to try writing a simple rhyme to help them with their learning. You can
split your class in to small groups to create a rhyme about odd and even numbers, or
times tables, or adding and subtraction.
Here are some lines from Tony’s song to help you.
Seven times three is twenty-one I’m sort of having fun
Eight times three is twenty-four I’ve never got this far before
Nine times three is twenty-seven Bertie Wilson can’t do that one, and he’s
eleven
So do this next one I’ll beat Bertie, ‘cos ten times three is thirty!
Creative Writing
Daydream Adventure
Ask your child or class to think about going on an adventure when they should be at
school. Ask them to imagine they are sat by an open window in their classroom and
they are able to climb out without the teacher noticing. Ask them to tell you or write a
short story about what happens next.
One Word Story
You can play this game with two or more people. Sit opposite your child or ask your
class to sit in a circle. Explain that you are going to create a story together by taking
it in turn to one word so together they create the sentences that make up the story.
You may want to include the rule that you must say full-stop if you think it is the end
of the sentence. The sentences must make sense so the children will need to listen
very carefully to each word to remember what is happening in the story and to
choose a word that builds the sentence and story. You may need to pause the story
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to remind the children what has happened or to encourage them to find an ending for
their story. The story must have a clear beginning, middle and ending.
Numeracy – Multiplication Grid Answer
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
2
4
6
8
10 12 14 16 18 20
3
6
9
12 15 18 21 24 27 30
4
8
12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40
5
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
6
12 18 24 30 36 42 48 54 60
7
14 21 28 35 42 49 56 63 70
8
16 24 32 40 48 56 64 72 80
9
18 27 36 45 54 63 72 81 90
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
10
100
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On-line references and resources
Links to illustrations of Picasso’s work:
1
http://www.pablopicasso.org/picasso-facts.jsp - Pablo’s first drawing
2
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/cultureminute/4516615/Le
e-Miller-and-Friends.html - Video featuring Picasso’s Grasshopper Bulls
3
http://www.rolandpenrose.co.uk/ - Roland Penrose/Works/Collage
4
https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/picbro.shtm - Study of a Torso
5
http://www.pablopicasso.org/old-guitarist.jsp - The Old Guitarist
6
https://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/20centpa/20centpa-46665.html Family of Saltimbanques
7
http://www.pablopicasso.org/three-musicians.jsp - Three Musicians
8
http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp - Guernica
9
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/p/artist/pablopicasso/object/lee-miller-gml-331 - Lee Miller
a)
Picassohead – a digital tool that provides famous features drawn by
Picasso that you can use to create your own masterpiece!
http://www.picassohead.com/about.html
Glossary

Abstract
Expression of general ideas and emotions using colours
and lines that does not attempt to create a realistic
picture.

Cubism
Representing objects by emphasising its geometric
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shapes and presenting the object from more than one
angle simultaneously. E;g. George Braque and Paul
Cezanne.

Dictator
A person who holds absolute authority or power.

Fascism
A system of government led by a dictator who has
complete control over the lives of the people in their
society, nation or country. The power is usually gained

by
violent of military force.
History Painting
The culmination of skills taught through a rigorous
system. Paintings were large and the subject was usually
a classical, mythological, literary or religious event.

Nationalism
A feeling of loyalty and pride in a person’s own country.
Or a strong belief or political ideology that nation you
live in interests are of primary importance

Realism
Accurately depicted scenes from everyday life. E.g.
William Dyce and Gustave Courbet.

Surrealism
Expression of the dream world of the subconscious,
often strange and fantastical. E.g. Joan Miro and
Roberto
Matta.
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