a man called kimmy.

This 4th grade project was inspired by the work of African-American sculptor Kimmy Cantrell and the cool lesson previously done by Mary over at Marymaking.

I loved seeing and hearing the reaction of the students this week when I shared Kimmy's name before showing students a picture of what the artist looks like. Similar to the reaction I got last week when we did a project based on the work of Pearl Fryar.

Kimmy changed careers over 20 years ago to focus his energy on his art. He went to college for business administration and after 12 years working in that field he realized he would be way happier if he went back to making things like he did in high school.

When we looked at a number of his mask sculptures the class and I talked about how they were examples of asymmetry. By changing the sizes and placements of facial shapes, Kimmy throws off the normal proportion and makes work more interesting because of it. We also looked at how he uses pattern  throughout his work.

We looked at a couple of images by Picasso and a few African masks to see what has influenced Kimmy's style over the years.

Before students started on their large mask drawings they were required to do at least two sketches. They turned these in with their finished projects to provide evidence of their planning.

Once the sketches were complete they drew out their design on a larger sheet. It had to be based on one of the sketches or a combination of the two. Students traced their lines in marker, adding thicker lines to provide visual variety and emphasis to certain parts of their designs. They added color with marker and colored pencils. We revisited making shapes look more 3d by going from dark to light with colored pencils, and they were asked to show implied volume with that technique somewhere in their image.

The drawings were then cut out and glued to a piece of black paper to get them to pop a bit.

This project provided an interesting contrast to the Day of the Dead skulls we did earlier in the year, when proportions were more normal and the heads were examples of symmetry.

Great job 4th graders!

he speaks for the trees.

His name is Pearl.

Pearl Fryar.

He has been creating a topiary garden on the grounds of his house in South Carolina for the past 30 years. He has over 300 plants on his property that he continues to shape from morning until night on most days of the week. Some of the pieces are hard edged geometric abstractions while others are looser, more natural looking spirals and curves.

There is a documentary of him and his work called "A Man Named Pearl". You can stream the video on Netflix. He is a pretty extraordinary artist and man. So passionate. So giving. The documentary is a great watch and provides insight into his process, philosophy, and history.

I shared a number of images from his website with my second grade classes this week. We talked about how he makes his work, and the fact that he has to maintain and cultivate it for many years. Trees and bushes do not stop growing. When our Gee's Bend quilts were done, they were done. If we worked on a tree, that would not be the case.

Since we could not create a real topiary in class (although it would be cool to start a couple on campus this year), we created drawings of our own gardens. Before we did this, we looked at a couple photos of Pearl's garden more closely, so we could talk about how 3d space was implied in them.

The students found out that shapes that are closer appear to be lower and shapes that are far away start higher up in the image. They also discovered that shapes appear largest when they are closer to you, and smaller when they move away from you.

They also saw that shapes looked 3d in the photos because of the play between light and shadow.

When hands on portion started, I emphasized that what their plants looked like was up to them. I modeled sizing and positioning, but they were not supposed to copy what my plants looked like.

Once the composition was laid in the next step was to use light and dark to create the illusion of volume in the plant shapes.

The kids really enjoyed seeing what Pearl could do with a living thing. They also really got a kick out of seeing somebody make art with hedge trimmers!

Thanks for the inspiration, Pearl! 

paper plates

Last week the kinders did a project that included a body of water, so I thought doing a project with fish or other sea creatures would be a good followup.

I recently discovered the work of Baba Wague Diakite. He is an artist that explores stories in a variety of mediums. Baba  writes and illustrates children's books, makes paintings, makes clay vessels, and plays music.

Many of his images include wild animals. He also explores pattern often in his work. Baba includes the patterning that is present on the creatures and he uses it as a decorative element in backgrounds or borders that tie in with the main characters in his wide variety of images.

After revisiting the project done last week with my classes, we took a look at Baba's website and learned that he was born in the country of Mali in 1961. He and his family now split time between there and Portland, Oregon. We looked at a number of his pieces and identified different animals and patterns in them.

We also talked about the fact that many of his paintings are done on clay bowls, plates, and platters. Students told me what we use those things for and we talked briefly about how those pieces are different than a drawing or painting on paper because the clay pieces can be used as well as looked at.

The last pieces we looked at of Baba's were a couple fish plates he made. We talked about the connection between the last project and this one. Drumroll.... the fish live in the water! Plus, the fish scale pattern we used in this project was identical to the wave pattern we used for the water in the previous project. The students created their own pattern infused paper plates based on the subjects of these plates.

1. I predrew the large circle shape for their paper plates
2. students drew inner circle to define a border in their design
3. students drew a sea creature that included repeated shapes or lines
4. students added a pattern in the border that related to the center image. I had some drawings of things they could use- boats, hooks, waves, bubbles
5. students traced their pencil lines with a black crayon to reinforce the lines even after painting
6. students cut out the plate shape from a square sheet of paper
7. students used watercolors to paint their plates- I emphasized the use of more water to make their colors lighter, so important shape and pattern details would not be lost

There were some interesting combinations of creature and pattern in the 4 classes that did the project. I think in the future I may have them use water soluble markers to paint with because there were too many students that went too dark with their paint and the hard work they put into their designs were lost.