poppin.

and lockin.

no, not really, but the 3rd graders ARE making some popsicle inspired art this week. We looked at the art of Sean Finocchio and the pop cart, Chiquita, of local pop shop Viva Pops as inspiration.

Sean is an LA based artist at 33 Stewart Avenue and makes art about what he sees in the neighborhoods around him. He likes to take different routes home from work to see new and interesting things. I love that! He likes to capture stuff that has a 70's flavor to it and as a child of that era, that holds a lot of appeal for me:)

Viva Pops is a local popsicle shop owned by Lisa Altmann. They have amazing pops, a cool spray paint mural in their shop, and a cute little cart called Chiquita.

The classes and I look at Sean's painting of a pop cart and the cart of Viva. We talk about what makes both images look 3d... the use of consistent diagonals.

We talk about seeing these types of carts in our neighborhoods and at framers markets. After that i explain that we'll use a pop cart as the focus of our project... and that we'll be using spray paint to help us create our work. At this point the kids tend to go a little bonkers:)

I share a finished example of the project and then I share one that isn't glued together so they can see the steps involved, in reverse.

The first thing we do is fold a 9x9 square into a triangle and then fold it again to quarter it. Then we draw a few, or more popsicles on the triangle. When students cut the shapes out, I ask them to save the cut out pieces so they may use them later. What's left is our stencil, basically a popsicle flavored snowflake:)

Then we go out and spray.

When we come back in, we draw the cart together on a smaller white sheet. Using cylinders and rectangular prisms to make our carts look 3d. When adding color to the carts, I ask students to press hard on one side of shapes and light on the other to make them look even more 3d.

Once the coloring is complete students cut out their carts and place them on their spray painted paper. They also arrange some of the pops they cut out  on top to make the composition even more engaging. I stress placing everything on the paper before starting to glue. This is their rough draft. If they are satisfied with what they have, then they glue everything in place. If not, they move stuff around until they like what they have.

I'm about halfway through the 3rd grade classes this week, the results have been really cool, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other classes do.

porkchop pop?

This week the 1st graders and I checked out the work of Leonard "Porkchop" Zimmerman. He is a painter living in Georgia who paints a lot of robots. These paintings are often fully saturated with color and emotion. There is a lovely energy and narrative to many of his works.

We looked a few of the images rotating through on his website and then focused on a couple images that were clear examples of Porkchop's use of line, shape, and color value to make his creatures look real and 3 dimensional.

The image that we re-interpreted was a monkeybot painting that Porkchop did for a local children's hospital. We talked about how the bot was made up of a bunch of cylinders- long, short, thick, and thin. We also talked about how he used light and dark to make some of his shapes look more round.

When we did the drawing together it was pretty direct. Students followed along as I built mine up front. Students had choices to make in terms of details, and color. We drew the monkey on a smaller piece of brown paper, traced and colored it, and cut it out. Once that was glued onto a white sheet we added the rest of the monkey and color.

Even though the students had the same steps to follow, many of the monkeys have distinct, wonderful personalities.

Thanks for the inspiration Porkchop!

in the tube.

The 1st graders and I looked at the work of artist David Hale this week. We focused on one wave work in particular. The kids told me what they saw in the image- shapes, colors, lines, and subject. I then talked about how David created movement in this one by simple adding a few lines to tell the viewer the direction the surfboard and wave were going.

This lesson was mixed media in nature. When we used crayons to add skin color to the surfer I explained that the crayons were easier to control in small areas than the tempera paint. When we added paint to the waves, I explained that it was easier to fill in large areas with a wide bruch full of paint. I also showed them how to create light and dark colors by using more or less water with their paint.

When we drew out the surfer body, we did so with general shapes first. Then, students could go back and add details to make theirs different than their neighbor's:)

The students had a lot of fun with this one. Thanks for the inspiration Mr. Hale:)

making trees.

This kinder project was inspired by an image by illustrator Jamey Christoph. I recently did a project based on his work with the 2nd graders and thought another of his pieces would be an interesting mixed media project for my youngest students.

This image provides a clear cut introduction to the different parts of a tree. Trunk, branches, and leaves. Fruit too, but the classes weren't able to get to that last piece in the hour we had together.

When I shared this picture with  my classes we identified the parts of the trees, the different light and dark colors we saw, and how the background color got lighter as it went down the paper.

The students focused on these aspects in the lesson. Plus, they got some practice cutting, gluing, and pattern making.

I started the hands on part of the lesson with a demo on how to make a color lighter by adding more water to it. This part of the project was pretty mellow. Calm kids going back and forth, back and forth with their brushes to fill the space. When finished, students put their papers at the back of their table to dry.

Then we focused on making leaves, trunks, and branches. Students made straight cuts to make trunks and branches out of two pieces of different value brown paper. They also cut leaves out of different color value green sheets. To make the leaves, students folded the paper before drawing and cutting, so that they would cut out two shapes at once.

Students then added patterns to their leaves with crayola color sticks.

Once they had finished pattern making, they got their painted backgrounds from the back of their tables, so that they could glue the different parts together.

Before students glued on the parts, I asked them to place the pieces on the background where they wanted them to go. I told them the trunks should touch the bottom of the paper. I modeled how to cut or tear smaller pieces of brown to make branches. Once they had a plan, they were allowed to glue. Then, they could place and glue the leaves where they wanted to see them on their trees. I emphasized that they could overlap leaves and trees to make parts look they were in front of others.

I gotta say, I really like the way these turned out. Interesting choices and arrangements all around the kinder classes.

I put a few of them together. Kinda cool to think of them as a longer panorama:)

A funny note- as students were putting these together the abstractions of Franz Kline came to mind. Something about the diagonals, use of thick and thin, and the contrast of dark and light. I was kind of obsessed with the guy's paintings in undergrad, so it was interesting to have that flashback with the little ones:)