Wall Art Part 2

In my wanderings out and about I have come across these two murals celebrating Charlie Chaplin. The first is in a courtyard at the Cypress Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California . It overlooks diners having afternoon tea in the patio restaurant.

The second is on the main road through Venice, CA.

I have been thinking it might be fun to discuss these two paintings with students, comparing the similarities and differences. Then I would give a photo of a well known man/woman to the kids and have them create a portrait within a setting of their choice. Afterwards we could have another discussion examining the similarities and differences of their paintings. FUN, HUH??

Picasso and Fractured Frankensteins

Last week one of our third grade teachers wanted to try out this lesson that she had seen on Pinterest using Picasso and Halloween as the motivation. So I helped out. (I wish I knew the original source to share with you, but all she had was a photo on her I-Phone and I don't have that information.)

We started with a little Picasso background and a Smartboard illustrated discussion about Cubism and its origins with Picasso and Braque. Students notice placement of eyes, nose, etc. and we talked about profile view vs. full face view.

Then, armed with the following guidelines, kids started cutting and glueing.
They had:

•  2 pieces of green construction paper (9" X 11"), one light and one darker     

•  1 strip of black construction paper (about 2" X 8")
•  1 piece each of black and white construction paper (about 4" X 6")  

•  1 large piece of construction paper forbackground (12" X 18") 

Students needed very little help as they created these fractured Frankenstein faces!!

'Tis the Week Before Christmas

As our Winter Holiday approaches, 3rd graders finish up these Tumbling People:

Here is how we started -- contemplating playing cards strewn about:

 Students used one card and drew their composition with pencil. Then they outlined the rectangles with black crayon to keep the watercolor from "traveling" between them. ( I demonstrated how to do this -- overlapping, not crossing over previous pencil lines, starting from the bottom and moving towards the top, etc.)

 Next came the watercolor: plain water first, then drop in two or 3 colors and watch the color run and mix together -- just like magic!!

 While the paint dried, students made gesture drawings the same size as their cards using white crayon.

Then it was time to place their figures and glue them on using dots of white glue.

This took one class period -- 50 minutes. Some kids had time to make a figure for each of their rectangles, others had one or two, but all the compositions were delightful!!

We ran out of time but in a second period we could have cut out the tumbling people and mounted them on a variety of different backgrounds. Here is what that might have looked like:

I think it is interesting to see how the same figures take on different moods with the varying backgrounds. This would provide a good opportunity to discuss positive and negative space. It's fun to experiment!!

Figure Drawing - Silhouettes

Last summer I ran into a student who told me she REALLY wanted to learn to draw human figures better. So, when I got around to planning lessons for this year I remembered that request and decided to make that the focus for at least one project for 4th graders.

We began with a mini Math lesson where kids figured out how many head lengths (top of head to chin) tall they were. It came out to about 6 or 6 1/2 head lengths. Then we talked about how the body looked when playing soccer (or some other physical activity where motion was involved). I think it is especially important to notice the angles of the arms and legs, where they bend, the tilt of the head, etc. We played a game where one child would freeze in some animated pose and the class would try to guess what s/he was doing. FUN!! (sorry I didn't get photos of this phase!)

Then I modeled on the big screen how to draw a stick figure (6 heads tall, of course) with just the head, shoulder line, spine, hip line, arms and legs. I talked about the angle of the shoulder and hip lines and drawing my figure so that the head/limbs "bumped the edges of the paper (so that later they would create negative space areas for painting).
I also talked about the importance of placing the head near the very top of the paper (unless your arms are going to be raised above the head) so the figure would be tall enough. We used white crayon on black construction paper.

 Next came a contour all around the stick figure lines. I found that, as the first group of kids tried this step, some forgot to go all around both sides of their stick figure line, making the limbs too skinny at first. So, in the next class I really emphasized that point as I was demonstrating.

 I have done lessons similar to this before, using pipe cleaners, paper strips, etc.( see here and here) to help students form a body in motion, but this time I wanted to try it "from scratch" without any crutches to help. I had seen a similar project done with older students on Artsonia (HERE) where the silhouettes had clothes. So at this point I showed the children how to add small touches (sleeves, cuffs, hair) that would enhance the idea of MOTION.

This was a little tricky for some. Adding these touches was optional or "artist's choice"
but I noticed that most kids gave it a try.

The students did a GREAT job of cutting out their silhouette. We only had one head and one arm cut off in 2 classes, and that was an easy fix when they glued the silhouette on the background later.

 Once the figure was cut out, students traced around it onto their 9" X 12" white illustration board making sure that the white crayon lines were on the back, not showing. (You could use construction or watercolor paper for this, I just have a large collection of cut board that I wanted to use up.)

 The boys at this table thought this guy looked like a combination of Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and somebody else that I can't remember -- they're right! Love it!!

The next step, after discussing the vocabulary words "positive and negative space", was to paint their areas of negative space with different tints and shades of one color. Students used cake tempera and liquid white tempera. They had a yogurt container lid for their palette and we talked about how to use the palette without smearing color over the entire surface and trying to keep separate little areas for mixing. If the palette did get "full" they could easily wipe it clean with a paper towel and start again.

One tip, when painting the negative spaces, I asked kids to paint a little over the pencil line, into their positive space area, so that later when they glued they would only see only color and not the white, unpainted background.

When all the negative spaces were painted, children put dots of glue around the edges of their silhouettes (on the back side where the white crayon lines were), flipped them over carefully and glued them in place.They placed them on the drying racks, but since we are in the middle of a heat wave, these were dry before I knew it!!

I am loving walking down the halls these days!! What a view!! Makes me feel like exercising (well, almost)!!

I REALLY love what the addition of clothes does to the silhouettes!!!

Keith Haring, the Olympics and Mondrian

What do these three entities have in common? Well, last week 5th graders used the positions that Olympic athletes might assume to create a Haring-like figure. They used pipe cleaners and card stock shapes to form a figure showing MOVEMENT.

They quickly drew a contour line around their figure and drew lines to segment that figure into a minimum of 12 sections and cut out the piece.

This drawing was done on white card stock.

I used Mondrian's Compositon A to illustrate how artists think about color BALANCE as they make paintings. For example, Mondrian did not place all his blue shapes in the same area of his painting; he spaced them out. Students then considered that principle of art as they completed the color portion of their art.

Our goal was to create a collaborative "installation" using figures from all 5th graders in the school. Here is part of that work:

As I walked around I noticed that most kiddos were conscientiously considering balance as they chose locations for their colors and patterns/designs. One adult passing the hallway display said I should title the whole board "HAPPY". Not a bad idea as we welcome the Winter Olympics this week!!

Movement and Texture

3rd graders made these collages a few weeks ago. They were influenced by the work of Keith Haring and Bernard Stanley Hoyes. I had them use the same process to create the people as 4th graders used for their action people -- pipe cleaners and head/body pieces to equal a height of 6 to 7 heads.

The kids used texture boards and crayons to create textural areas which they cut out and glued under their people.

Students were encouraged to turn their bodies multiple ways before making a final placement decision. The goal was to generate the maximum feeling of "motion." I love the variety of positions!!