Last week was a catch up day for us. I have been displaying the first graders beautiful Georgia O'Keefe flowers and poems at school and some students still needed to finish their good copy of their poem. While some students worked on this, others completed their Keith Haring cartoon from the week before, and they have really perfected the art of drawing like Haring. If students were done both of these projects, they were allowed to use white pastels on black paper to do a cartoon of something imaginary or inspiring, just like the subway drawings Keith Haring made with chalk. I showed students a short CBS Sunday Morning Story about how Haring made art visible and available to people on the streets. Sometimes he even got arrested for this, but just for a day or so. My students thought that he should not draw on property with out permission, but they loved that he was able to make art for the people and were shocked at how much his work sold for in the galleries!
This most recent class they took the Keith Haring theme one step further and used clay to make Keith Haring inspired sculptures. They did an amazing job with these too and had a noticeably fun time trying their own techniques and making their ideas come to life!
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Last class,I we jumped a few decades to move from Georgia O'Keefe to the 1980's when street artist Keith Haring's art became popular. We studied Haring's work and watched a short video about him. I asked students to find ways that his art is different than other artists we've studied. I showed them some tricks on how to draw in his style, and the artists set out to draw their own cartoon in Keith Haring's style. The only requirements were that their drawing had to show a character in motion. students had their classmates strike a pose and model fun action positions.
Last week, the first graders began this finishing touches on their beautiful Georgia O'Keefe paintings. I gave them some sentence starters to get their words flowing. Students began their poems by filling in the blank and copied and attached their final poem to their flower.
Here are a few examples of their creative words! "My flower reminds me of love My flower is pink like a pig My flower is blue like the sea My flower is soft like silk My flower is happy like ME!!!" "My flower reminds me of Paris My flower is purple like a grape My flower is green like a lime My flower is round like a ball My flower is exciting like a rose" "My flower reminds me of planets My flower is gold like the sun My flower is green like grass My flower is pink like dawn My flower is smooth like skin My flower is mad like a dinosaur" Last week, I reviewed facts about our artist Georgia O'Keefe. Students reminded me that Georgia painted flowers in hopes that other people would see them the way she did. With that, I demonstrated a few techniques for them to try on their own. I told students they could add some imaginary colors to their flowers and that they should have fun and explore mixing colors right on their page. It's worth mentioning that I love Spring time and working in my own garden, so I was excited about this project before we began. But after seeing what these artists have created, I am truly in awe with their work. Every student was engaged and inventive and it was a joy to watch them paint and hear their reactions to their artwork changing before their eyes.
While cleaning up our supplies, a student returned my copy of "Georgia O'Keefe 100 Flowers", which I had shown before painting and let students explore when they were cleaned up. This is a very large book, and the size helps convey the focus and attention to color, shapes and space. As this student handed the large book to me, he told me to be careful with it because "this book is magic." I loved watching the first graders move past the observation and recording stage in their drawings into the curious and creative stage and finding "the magic" in painting. Amazing job! On Thursday, I introduced the first graders to one of my favorite artists- Georgia O'Keefe. I brought in flowers so they could do an observational drawing. Each student was asked to draw 1-2 flowers that filled their whole page. I am so excited to see these flowers with color when they paint them next week. These drawings are gorgeous!
Before Spring Break, the first graders finished their Matisse cut outs. They are full of vibrant colors and organic shapes. See if you can find the animals, plants or people the students included in their work!
Last week, I read "Drawing with Scissors" to the first graders, a book about the later artwork of Henri Matisse. The students made keen observations after looking at images of some of his cut outs and I explained that these free form "loosey-goosey" type shapes have a special name: organic shapes. I gave the first graders very few restrictions and told them that they could create anything as long as it had organic shapes. Their artwork could be abstract, or have figures and animals in it like some of Matisse's work (if they could make a free form version of them). They all began with embellishing their background, and they created their first layer of their work.
Last class, the first graders did as Kandsinsky has said, and "started with a dot." While some students were still wrapping up their Kandinsky inspired color studies, other students took the opportunity to make their own abstract art. I showed students more examples of Kandinsky's paintings that are more geometric and free flowing, full of lies and movement and they made great observations about what the painting looked like to them. Focusing on the elements of art- lines, shape, texture, color, they set out to create their own works of art. In one class, they began collaging the scrap papers to create an abstract piece.
Last week, I introduced the first graders to one of the fathers of abstract art- Vassily Kandinsky. Students listened to Mozart as they worked, just like Kandinsky, who was inspired by music and often named his paintings like song titles "Composition V." For our project, students practiced cutting circles and experimenting with color combinations to make their own unique color study, a la Kandinsky. Some students chose to use only cool colors or warm colors, while others are almost monochromatic, or a balance of both. Well done!
There's nothing like the apparent magic of watercolor on top of crayon. Last week, the first graders added extra texture and a variety of colors to their personal versions of Van Gogh's "Starry Night." they then painted over the crayon with water color to fill in the white spaces.
I love how these turned out! |
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