a lil' crooked.

This week the 2nd grade classes are continuing their work with line. We are looking at the work of designer Mike Klay of Powerslide Design. Mike makes some pretty darn cool posters, skate decks, and t-shirts. I love the way he plays with natural forms and settings. I like the way he has patterns evolve and change throughout his work.

I share one piece, in particular, with the kids. It's titled "Leaf Dweller".

 

First, we identify what we see- a tree, leaves, more trees, a house, a vent, a bird, and a weather vane.  Although most kids call the weather vane a windmill:) We then talk about which parts look close to us, and the kids agree that the tree and house look closer to us because they are darker, or bolder than the trees. Some kids pick up on the overlapping too. 

To review the warm and cools  we learned about last week I ask the kids to identify what colors are present in this image. Students are able to recognize green as cool and that there are no warm colors present.

I then ask them to describe the types of lines that the branches are made of. I have gotten many answers of wavy and bumpy, and some crookeds. I have even got wrinkly as an answer.

Once we are done breaking sown the image, I share an example I did that uses warm color leaves to turn the design into a scene of autumn.

The project is built from the back to the front. Students lightly draw a zigzag type line all the way across their paper to create the tree line. I remind them to press softly so it looks light, like we did with the water in the background of our fish pic from last week. Students lightly fill this in with a gray colorstick. 

The house is done with black paper. We draw out the top of a house and then cut it out. I point out that we only saw the top pf the house in Mike's image. I tell students that they don't have to copy mine, if they want their house to look different, that is more than okay.

After they cut out the house I ask them where they want to put it- left, center, or right. The only requirement is that the house doesn't float off the bottom edge of the paper.

Our branches are next. I ask students to add 3 long, bold crooked lines, starting at the side of the paper. Students then need to go back and make the lines a little thicker near the side of the paper. 

Then we do a little math... If we have 3 branches and we want a sum of 8, how many do we need to add? Then we add 5 medium branches that are attached to our long ones. Then we add small branches to our tree- if we have 8 branches, how many do we need to have 13?

Once the branches are done, we add the weather vane, followed by the warm color leaves. If students want to add any other details, like lit windows or birds, or any other stuff, they can once everything else is done.

I love how everybody's branches are different and how they're all a little funky too:)

abstracting like alma.

Alma Thomas was a remarkable woman. She was the first student to ever graduate from Howard University with a degree in art. She taught art in the Washington D.C. area for almost 40 years. She became known around the world for her vibrantly colored abstractions, most of which were done after she turned 60 years old.

Her work has been compared to Byzantine mosaics in terms of shape spacing and color usage.

When I introduced the 5th graders to her work last week, I talked about how she painted many images inspired by her garden that was outside her studio window. I asked the students to picture what her work would look like based on that one tidbit.

I shared this painting with them first. No one was picturing this. We then discussed what made this an abstract painting. We also discussed how the painting could be inspired by her garden. We have been dealing with abstraction versus representation a lot this year, so their responses were pretty spot on.

We also looked at a couple of her paintings that were inspired by her interest in space. Again, there was interesting discussion about the paintings. The different things students saw in them, the patterns, and the different types of color relationships that were present in Alma's work.

For the hands on portion of the lesson, students had to create a composition based on Alma's work. I demonstrated various ways they could build off of one shape or several in order to create a unifying pattern in their work.

Once they laid in the pattern in pencil, students applied tempera paint to the paper and filled the surface with brushstrokes. The marks could be large or small, and they were not allowed to fill much of the surface with solid areas of color.

There was a wide variety of mark, between energetic and calm, densely packed to very spacious.

If I could make a castle...

For the 2nd graders 3rd lesson this year I wanted them to continue focusing on line, but to explore color and shape differently.

Rob Dunlavey's illustrations of crystal cities were perfect for this new direction. Rob is an illustrator living outside Boston and he is quite prolific. He has done work for children's books, educational texts,  newspapers and magazines. A lot of his work has a strong geometric style, although he has been producing some wonderful drawings of animals and landscapes that are much more naturalistic.

His series of crystal castle drawings offered students a chance to explore line to make geometric shapes and patterns and to create a drawing that was much flatter than the previous two that we have done this year. In this project students relied on their imagination to create their own castle drawing while only using geometric shapes.

The kids have loved viewing Rob's work and making their own castles. There has been a lot of variety in the student work, which is always great to see. Different students have excelled at this lesson. Some have really gotten into the pattern making and repetition of it.

While Rob uses many different color combinations in his drawings, the students have been using warm and cool colors only. Using one set for the castles and the other for the background.

I also brought the concept of symmetry to the students' attention. It's a bit early in the year to bring it up, but it is one of their visual arts standards, so I wanted to plant the seed so they can start to recognize it in art and nature.

1. introduce students to Rob's work and the elements of contour line, pattern, geometric shapes, and warm and cool colors
2. make the largest shapes of the castles
3. add smaller areas of geometric shapes and patterns to the castles
4. add background patterns using the opposite of the warm or cool colors used on the castles

I will be using Rob's sculptural castles as inspiration for a project with the 5th graders this year as well. I'm very excited to see what they do after viewing his work. Stay tuned...