This is a summary of posts from my Modern Art class at the local homeschool coop this fall. The links are to each individual post. Our reading list is here.
Primary color paintings inspired by Piet Mondrian are here.
Circle paintings inspired by Wassily Kandinsky are here.
Geometric drawings inspired by Sonia Delaunay arehere.
I did not post about the project we did inspired by MC Escher. I don't think the projects turned out that well, and the kids didn't have fun with it. Since I didn't consider it a success, I didn't share it.
Construction paper collages inspired by Henri Matisse arehere.
Jungle paintings inspired by Henri Rousseau are here.
Pipe cleaner sculptures inspired by Alexander Calder arehere.
Leaf rubbing watercolors inspired by Andrew Goldsworthy are here.
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.
Our second sculpture project of the
class focused on the assemblages of Louise Nevelson.
To source the wood for this project, I
scrounged through my neighbors trash. He's a cabinetmaker so I'm
very fortunate. If you don't have a local source for interesting
little pieces of wood, the art supply places sell packs of them. If
you dumpster dive wood, be cautious of painted pieces. Only because
this is a kids project, you don't want a lot of lead paint. That's a
real problem in our area so I didn't want anything off old houses.
For the majority of scrounged wood this is of course not a problem,
just be aware.
I cut 12” X 12” pieces of masonite
for their background. The students got glue and a big pile of wood pieces and got to
arrange them in any way they wanted. They came up with an
interesting diversity of work. One piece was very symmetrical. The two boys treated it like a block project and kept piling on more
height than was realistic for a wall piece. Everyone thought it was an interesting project and put a lot of thought into their pieces. Due to time constraints,
the students got white paint to apply at home and a hanger for when the piece was dry.
In class we focused on these three works:
left: Royal Tide I and right: White Vertical Water, image source: The San Fransisco Sentinel
Royal Tide, image source: MyArtbox.org
We discussed what materials she used and what they might represent, as well as why the pieces were painted all one color.
For more information about Louise
Nevelson, check out these websites: The Louise Nevelson Foundation Jewish Museum of New York Nevelson exhibition. Family guide for the exhibition.
There aren't any current books about
Louise Nevelson but your local library might have these two.
As a partner project to our Goldsworthy inspired leaf watercolors, our coop art class did tree monoprints in honor of
Margaret Preston. She is better known for her woodblock prints which
I enjoyed seeing at the National Gallery when I was in Australia. We
focused on the three specific monoprints below.
Stephen's Creek, NSW, image source: National Gallery of Australia
Fern Trees, Laura, image source: National Gallery of Australia
Northern Territory gums, image source: National Gallery of Australia
I provided everyone a foil wrapped
piece of cardboard for their 'plate'. The masking tape border is ¼"
smaller than the 5” X 7” paper I provided so that the
finished prints have a border.
They also got q tips and a palette with
white, black, blue, red and yellow paint. I put brayers in styrafoam veggie trays and they were inked
with metallic colors. If you have plexiglass or a sheet of regular glass it works much better with the brayers. I also provided tempera paint instead of printing ink. Printers ink is much better quality but I wanted paint that would wash out of clothes. The parents really appreciate that. The downside of tempera paint is how fast it dries. I have one very deliberate student who was having trouble with her work drying before she could print it.
They had three choices for how to do
their monoprints. They could use the foil as their plate and apply paint directly to it with the q tips like a real monoprint. Or they could use
the brayer to ink their foil and pull paint away with the q tips. Or
they could do a combination of the two. Ideally, the masking tape gets wiped with a rag before they print their plate, but as you can see from the sample plate above, that doesn't always happen.
These 5” X 7” finished pieces are
great for holiday cards since it's the season or they work really
nicely as a series for bookbinding. The foil on top of cardboard gives a very nice simulated woodblock texture which I emphasized since Ms. Preston did more of those. You could adapt this project to be a substitution for woodblock printing very easily as well.
To see more of Ms. Preston's her work, the National Gallery
has a large collection online. National Gallery of Australia
The Australian government has a page about her and her work here.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography has more info here.
There are no kids art books available in the states about Margaret Preston.
We looked at Andy Goldsworthy's art in
class lately. We don't really have fall in Florida. It gets cooler,
which is a welcome relief but the leaves don't change color, and you
plant vegetables instead of harvesting them. His art still seemed
like it'd make a nice, small, fall connection so I saved it for late
in the class.
I mentioned the spectrum of materials
he uses but we looked at three leaf works in honor of the fall theme.
Red leaf patch, image source: Goldsworthy Digital Catalogue
Leaves polished, greased made in the shadow of the tree from which they fell, pinned to the ground with thorns. Image source: http://www.ucblueash.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/works.html
I specifically included this photo because it
shows him working on the piece. It's from the archive rather than a
gallery piece.
Yellow and ruddy leaves
made edge by finding ruddy and yellow lead the same size
tore yellow leaf in two, spat underneath one half
pressed it on to the ruddy leaf, image source: Andy Goldsworthy Digital Catalogue
We always struggle with the clock in
this class. By the time I introduce the artist, explain the
techniques involved, and leave some room for clean up we only have thirty five minutes to work. No one was able to finish this project in
class and I would consider this one of our easier ones. I of course
encourage everyone to finish at home and most do, but when you do this
at home you don't have to worry about the clock as much. All the
images I show from this class on the blog are of older Toad's artwork. I only
show his work so I don't need permission from any of the parents to
show other work. I'm bringing up the issue of time because he didn't
finish in class and finished the background wash at home. The project took about an hour total, not counting double clean up time. If you're doing this project at home you won't have that trouble.
In class we used palette watercolors, crayons, and construction paper. We used construction paper rather than watercolor paper because watercolor paper has too much tooth, you won't get good rubbings. If the construction paper gets wrinkly because of the washes, weigh it down with heavy books for awhile after it's dry and that should help.
In the spirit of Goldsworthy's work I collected lots of leaves from our yard. While they're not all native to our area, it is working with local materials. I tried to choose leaves that had strong veins and interesting outlines for neat rubbings. First we peeled the crayons (black, brown, and tan).
Then we put a leaf under the paper and rubbed over it with the flat side of the crayon. The goal is to fill the paper with the leaf rubbings, one leaf at a time. When all the rubbings are done, use the watercolors to paint a wash (lots of water to paint ratio) over the leaves. Some of the students wanted to paint the leaves - the veins and outline with very opaque (very little water to paint ratio) watercolor. That just covers up the rubbing. Try to save the leaf painting for another watercolor.
When all the leaves have a wash, in any color, choose a different color for the background. Fill the entire background in with that wash. Voila! You just completed a fall watercolor. I got reports from my students the week after we did this that they enjoyed doing more of these projects with different variations all week.
If you'd like to learn more about Andy
Goldsworthy look at these websites:
Goldsworthy's home page (that's the name of this site, it's really a student project) Goldsworthy digital catalogue
Or look at these books and video. The books are not specifically for kids but I've shared some of these with my guys and they enjoy looking at them. I
LOVE the video, it's amazing to watch. It's like one of those
relaxating nature CD's you'd hear while getting a massage but instead
it's for your eyes.
