nico, skye, and line.

A couple of weeks ago, our 3rds and kinders both set out to explore and experiment with line. The 3rds focused on bold contour lines to define shapes in a composition inspired by the work of Australian artist  Nico. The kinders used different kinds of lines to make a San Diego composition inspired by artist Skye Walker, who lives right here in San Diego.

The 3rds first. I introduced them to Nico's work with a few images. We noticed that he tends to use bold, thick contour lines in a lot of his work. We also noticed that he also uses lines, shapes, and colors to add pattern elements to most parts of his compositions. Finally, we picked up that while his images look somewhat flat, he does, in fact, create some 3d space by overlapping shapes a lot in his images. The openness of his figurative abstract images allows kids to read combinations of geometric and natural shapes differently from each other.

After discussing Nico's work, we set of to make images that were inspired by his work, but did not copy it. We started by doing at least 2 sketches. The types of shapes, arrangement, etc., was open. The only 2 rules were to include at least 10 shapes and to overlap at least 3 times.

When we were done sketching, we picked one to use for our final drawing and created a sentence that explained our reasoning for that choice. "I chose sketch 2 because it is cool" was not an option. We need to give a more detailed reason why the image is cool.

We then drew out the sketch on a larger sheet of paper, keeping in mind that the image could change a bit going from small to big and that we could add more details or elements if we felt like we needed to.

We then traced our pencil lines with a thick sharpie marker, added pattern elements to each shape with colored markers, and finished the drawing by adding fill colors to the shapes with crayola color sticks.

I really like the wide variety of approaches that students took to this activity,

The kinders, meanwhile, looked at a couple of paintings by Skye Walker. We looked at how he used horizontal and vertical lines to split up his paintings into smaller squares and rectangles. We also noticed that he used elements in those shapes that were found right here in San Diego.

We started the hands on activity by adding 2 horizontal and 2 vertical lines to split up our paper. We then drew San Diego elements in each of those sections- water pattern, palm trees, mountains, sun, and cactus. We switched over to markers to add bold color to each part and used color sticks at the end to add light background colors. For this last step, we used the side of a color stick so we could see the difference between using the point of a drawing tool and the side of one.

The kinders have done a great job with their first art rotation and I can't wait to learn more about them as the year goes on!

the idea man.

Breaking from form here and doing a project based on a dead guy...

I was inspired by the projects done over at color and collage that focused on the work of artist Sol Lewitt.

Sol was a prolific artist who came up with some amazing wall drawings that had beautiful interactions between the elements of shape, line, and color. Most of his mature work was done on walls. He always considered them drawings even when the materials shifted to acrylic paint.

He fit nicely with the artists the 5th graders had been introduced to in this last rotation because even though he was not considered a graffiti artist, his work has the same presentation- large scale abstraction on a wall.

One of the interesting things that makes his work different than Remed and Supermundane is that he did not draw his images on the walls. Other people did. Being a Conceptual artist, he was more focused on the idea. That was the most interesting and important aspect of the creative act for him. He made plans and diagrams, but the large scale work was carried out by assistants, students, and/or art novices.

The students thought this fact was quite interesting and I got numerous monetary offers to create the visual products of their ideas.

After being told that they were responsible for the actual drawing and their disappointment over this fact had dissipated, we got rolling with the project.

Students got 3 6x6" squares and needed to draw a line on each that started on one side and finished on another. What the line looked like between those to points was up to them. This first line on each sheet needed to be the same color. After that, as they added more and more lines to each sheet, the color choices were also up to them.

Once the sheets were complete, students taped them together so that the first line on each connected with one another. After this, students made cuts along the edges of the squares that followed the contours of their lines, to make the completed shape a bit more funky and interesting.

The final step was to hook up with another student or students and create a watercolor background that the pieces would get glued down to. This also used repetition in line and shape.