Our last class in Modern Art covered the work of Diego Rivera. I like to do a group project for the last class and this time we did a group mural in pastels. First we did our standard brief introduction to the artist and looked at these three works.
From the Pan American Unity Mural at City College of San Fransisco
From the Detroit Institute of Arts mural
The Kid, image source: Wikipedia
We segued into our project with a brief discussion of the history of students reproducing the works of great artists for practice.
For our mural, I scanned the painting Dance in Tehuantepec from Pete Hamill's book, Diego Rivera. I then divided it up into 6 equal parts, one for each student. The parts were printed out full size on to an 81/2" X 11" and I trimmed the art paper down to be the same size.
They got plenty of pastels with the directions to recreate what they saw in their sample. We talked about how to blend colors and they each got some qtips for rubbing tools. They each did a good job and reproduced their sections really well. Older Toad got the top left hand side. This is his finished contribution.
Resources online for more information
National Gallery of Art's inside scoop publication Here's the American Master's PBS series. The website includes lesson plans.
Our latest project to report on in Modern Art class was based on the work of Frida Kahlo. Her work is intimately tied to her life story so it's worth doing a little homework on her before looking at her art. Your interpretations will change dramatically with more information. In class, we looked at these three works below. I gave a brief biography of her life, including her health summary and marriage to Diego Rivera, and the rest of the time we spoke about the symbolism in the paintings. That description might make it seem like I talk at the kids for hours but it's usually a 5 minute discussion where they do a lot of participating.
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, image source: Philadelphia Museum of Art
Roots, image source: Guardian
The Wounded Deer, image source: Wikipaintings
The assignment in class was self portraits. I had brought the subject up in class several times in advance and did ask everyone to think about what aspects of themselves they'd like to present. Even 5 year olds can get self conscious about painting themselves, so I didn't want to put anyone on the spot.
They were each given a double sided sharpie and a piece of watercolor paper. The double sided sharpie was for drawing themselves. Two sides can give variety to their line weights if they choose to use both sides. They each had a mirror they could use as well. Most of them looked in the mirror at first and then started drawing without looking in them again. That's been my experience every time I do self portraits with this age group, but I still bring the mirrors in to introduce the idea for the future.
Once they had all their lines in, they got to add color with watercolor paint. I set the project up as a self portrait of just their head with perhaps a border or other items in the background that were important to them (like Kahlo's work), or they could do an 'action' shot of themselves participating in their favorite activities. One student chose to do themselves as a raccoon (with their own face) surfing. I thought that was a much cheerier version of Kahlo's Deer.
Toad's version of the project, above, ended up interesting. He was very self conscious of his work in class, the down side of your mom being the teacher probably. He did a portrait of himself painting but chose very little color. I thought that was great subject of course, but being the art teacher gave him the white space lecture. We always struggle with time in class and he finished the project at home while I was out running an errand. When I came back, I asked why he chose to cover everything with blue. He explained, "It's me on a cold day so my skin has turned blue." He had that look on his face so that's what I get for controlling his self expression! This technique of sharpie then watercolor is so versatile I use it a lot.It also is great for this age group as it explores two different skills - drawing and painting in one project. You could apply this technique to many different artists to work up your own artist study.
