jamming with jeremy

Searching for local artist inspiration a little while ago, I came across the work of Jeremy Sicile-Kira. I soon discovered that Jeremy is autistic and that he is nonverbal. One of the ways he communicates with the world is through his painting. I love his bold, bright palette and his use of masking tape to create lines throughout his compositions.

I have since used his work as inspiration for painting experiments with a couple groups of students.

I have 2 class moderate/severe special education classes and I thought his world would lend itself so well to experiments with liquid media and color mixing. We broke the process down into 3 parts- coloring a sheet with crayon while trying to use the side of the crayon, then placing tape down and adding color with cake tempera, adding more tape and more cake tempera, and finally, more tape and liquid tempera. The cake tempera gave us transparent colors while the liquid temperas gave us more opaque colors. The first class is younger and required more hand over hand assistance with these steps. The second group is older and more independent and through the activity with less help.

At the end of each experiment, students helped each other add paint to large canvases that were already taped. Again, exploring color mixing. Earlier in the year, they created the first layers of color on these by driving vehicles through primary color paint to make secondary colors.

I've also introduced Jeremy's work to my first graders and when doing so, I have talked about how he is a wonder like Augie from "We're All Wonders', which the 1st grade team has read. With these experiments, students have followed the same steps, although the first layer of crayon is a bit more complex in shape and detail. With each step, we talk about creative choices- what parts of the image do they want to protect from the next layer of paint. We also go over proper care of each of the paint mediums and the paint brushes.

The activities have been a blast to do with each of the groups- there has been A LOT of excitement as the tape gets peeled off at the end of the activity.

lines with m&m.

I recently wrapped up my first 2 week rotation with our first graders. They explored line direction, pattern, and color value while being inspired by the work of Monty Montgomery and Minhau. Students discovered that an artist can use similar types of lines to make works of art that look a lot different than each other.

I shared the work of Monty the first week. (Monty was kind enough to visit with some students while this was going on... I'll share more on that wonderful experience later:) He paints intensely colored, hard edged abstract pieces and I used his work to introduce students to horizontal, vertical, and diagonal straight lines. After making the lines with our bodies, we looked at a few of his pieces to see how he used those lines in his paintings. We also discovered that he creates patterns with lines and colors.

We then made a couple practice sketches that were inspired by his abstract compositions. We did the first one together and then I asked the kids to try a second one and encouraged them to place their lines in different places than their first sketch. They picked one they liked more and shared their reasoning with a buddy. "I chose my first drawing because..."

We then drew the composition on a larger sheet and I reminded them that their drawing could change a bit- they could revise it and they could add more detail if they felt like their drawing needed it.

Before adding color, we practiced pressing hard and soft, so they could use that technique to create patterns in their work. When done, we wrote a sentence about the process. I encouraged them to use line vocab in their sentence.

The next week we looked at the work of Brazilian artist Minhau. We discovered that she has a thing for cats and these cats use the same kinds of lines Monty uses. Plus, she uses curved lines. Minhau also plays with thick and thin lines to emphasize certain parts of her painted subjects.

After sharing a couple of her paintings, we practiced in the same way we did for our Monty inspired drawings. Students chose, reasoned their choice, revised and refined it on larger paper. To emphasize thick and thin, we used chisel tip markers and tried to make our big shapes have thick outlines and the detailed parts have thin lines.

When we colored, I encouraged pattern making with hard and soft, as well as multiple colors.

Kids were very engaged with both lessons and are taking to the preliminary sketch part without much of a hitch.

chalking and grooving.

My first graders also got into the chalk pastel action last week. They experimented with them as an extension to their color mixing unit. The week before, I read them "In My Heart- A Book of Feelings" and they used primary color crayola color sticks to make secondary colors in their drawings. Very clean!

This project was obviously a lot more messy:) We started the lesson by briefly looking at the work of Norman Lewis, an African American painter whose styled evolved into abstract expressionism over the course of his artistic career. He was strongly inspired by jazz music. On the flip side of that inspiration, musicians have actually performed pieces inspired by the shapes, colors, and composition present in his work.

We noticed how he used large and small shapes, how he added white to colors to create tints, and how he used primary and secondary colors in his work. I discussed his love of jazz. Our 1st grade classrooms are located in close proximity to our music rooms, so we connected to their experience on campus. They hear the older kids play strings and horns from their classes and they hear the instrumental music particularly at recess time.

For each stage or layer of the drawing, we worked to a different piece of instrumental music and attempted to connect our marks to the music.

Students laid down the primary color background to a mellow Miles Davis piece called "So What". They smoothed some of those parts down while continuing to listen to it. They mixed some areas to create secondary colors while listening to a calm arrangement by the Benny Goodman Orchestra. Tints were mixed while listening to a faster tempo song from Horace Silver called "Blowing the Blues Away". They then got into the first portion of smaller marks and lines. They listened to a percussion heavy piece by the Incredible Bongo Band titled "Apache" that has been sampled heavily by hip hop artists over the years, most famously by Grandmaster Flash in the early 80s. When readying for this step, I encouraged them to think about the speed of the music, it's beat, and it's loudness. Some kids were more involved with dancing at first and I told them to think about how they could translate those moves into marks on their paper. The final piece of markmaking was in response to an instrumental piece by the Beastie Boys called "Pow".

I think the kids, by and large, loved this drawing and listening experiment. It was really cool to see how different kids responded to the music with color placement and mark making energy and arrangement.

still life times 3.

Hello... is this thing on?

For the past couple of weeks, 3 different grade levels have been brainstorming and planning as they experiment with composition, color, value, and 3d volume/space. Each of the projects also addresses the idea of self as they are composed of personal items and favorites.

I introduced my 1st graders to the works of British artist Michael Craig Martin. I get a kick out of his thematic compositions and how he elevates and subverts this scholastic magazine/ visual dictionary figurative style. We looked at how some shapes were overlapped by others and how that's an example of front/back. We also noticed his free use of color to fill his objects.

We used his style and image structures to create a still life that was composed of things we liked to play or work with.

The kids started by writing a list of 5 things and then doing small sketches of them. After that, they moved on to taking those and trying out at least 2 different composition sketches. Before moving on to the final I have them share why they're choosing one sketch over the other to a partner.

I always encourage drawing softly, drawing bigger, and that changes may occur from small sketch to big final. They used crayon and cake temperas to complete the project. 

This is the first time these 1sts have gone though these steps with me and they did a wonderful job with the creative process.

My 4ths were using a still life by Roy Lichtenstein as the inspiration for a crayon and tempera multi panel personal still life. We identified how he used multiple panels to break up the picture. We talked about comics and how Roy was inspired by their look and visual devices. We connected this to the graphic novels today and the intro credit sequence to Marvel Comics movies these days.

The project involved them brainstorming, practicing, and planning a still life that used a minimum of 3 frames to communicate something about themselves. They also used crayon and cake temperas to complete their project.

Currently, my 3rds are also experimenting with the still life subject. This time, focusing on composition, color value, and 3d volume. We are looking at the work of LA based photographer Stephanie Gonot. I love how her compositions of food items references decorative patterns. The sweetness of her subjects and color choices also draw me right in. We look at a Picasso still life in my room and identify the point of view present in it. I then share overhead photos of food still lifes she has done and we talk about the overhead point of view and then get into shadow and light. This ties in with 3rd grade science concepts. How if we see the shadows on one side, the light source is directly opposite it. How shadows change in size and direction throughout the day, and how different size objects create different size cast shadows.

They, too, are listing, practicing, and planning as they create a still life that shows 3d volume and space, a consistent application of light source and shadow, and developing sense of effective/engaging compositions.