Tag: K-8

3rd Grade – 2-D and 3-D designs à la Keith Haring

3rd Grade – 2-D and 3-D designs à la Keith Haring

Line & Color with Keith Haring

Description of the Unit –

Students explored the work of contemporary New York artist Keith Haring. A crafty, resourceful and thoughtful artist, Haring created artwork with powerful messages using deceptively simple, cartoon-like designs in a variety of spaces, both private and public. His work was accessible to a diverse public in ways few artists had achieved.

Students observed and discussed his use of bold, primary and secondary colors, but more importantly they focused on Haring’s use of straightforward line to suggest movement, gesture and feeling. Students attempted their own designs inspired by the characteristics of Haring’s work. The first lesson had students create designs in 2-D, the second in 3-D.

3rd grade Keith Haring-inspired line figure drawings
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2nd Grade – Huichol Yarn Painting

2nd Grade – Huichol Yarn Painting

Description of the Unit – Students will create yarn paintings in the style of the Huichol of México.

Activity statement – The Huichol are a culture native to western México (mostly in Jalisco and Nayarit) who have preserved many of their ancient arts and crafts practices. So esteemed are they to Mexico’s heritage that the Mexican government and UNESCO have made great effort to preserve the culture and its environment. While the Huichol first used materials found in nature to produce their art, they now Huichol use modern materials and dyes in their crafts. Among the many incredible crafts the Huichol produce is the yarn painting, an intricate, highly colorful tableau of symbols and images “painted” with bright yarn arranged in bold patterns.

Traditional Huichol yarn painting
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1st Grade – Pattern Collages

1st Grade – Pattern Collages

Description of the Unit –

Students will reinforce their understanding of patterns in art by creating collage patterns both individually and then in trios for a triptych of patterns.

Activity statement –

Pattern is one of the elements of the visual arts. It is represented as repetition, be it of a color, line, shape, symbol or combination of some or all of these. The repetition can serve to communicate a sense of balance, rhythm, harmony, movement and contrast in the artwork.

1st grade individual pattern collage
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Kindergarten – Ecosystem collages inspired by Eric Carle

Kindergarten – Ecosystem collages inspired by Eric Carle

Description of the Unit –

Integrated with a science unit on ecosystems, students will create an Eric Carle-inspired collage of an ecosystem.

Kindergarten art - Eric Carle-style ecosystem collage
Ocean ecosystem by kindergarten student: for this she used a dolphin stencil to help her

Activity statement –

In kindergarten science students explore an entire unit devoted to ecosystems. They learn about earth’s many ecosystems: climate, flora, fauna and so forth. Each student is assigned a specific ecosystem to research and present to the class. This collage will be one of the visual elements used in their reports.

To inspire the collage-making process, we will look at different Eric Carle books and notice his painted paper collages. Using his techniques as a guide, we will focus on color and texture as students first paint large pieces of paper in single colors and then add texture with the brushes, combs, forks, rollers and other tools provided. These pieces of paper will be used communally among the students for their collages, therefore no one piece belongs to one student.

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3rd grade – Personification of feelings with Mies van Hout’s “Happy”

3rd grade – Personification of feelings with Mies van Hout’s “Happy”

“Happy” by Mies van Hout

Activity statement – If “sad” had a color, what color would that be? If “confused” were expressed in lines, what kind of lines would those be? By exploring the associations of color and lines to certain feelings, students will imagine little creatures that personify those feelings, much in the style of Mies Van Hout’s book “Happy”.

Description of the Unit – Together in class we explored and discussed Mies Van Hout’s picture book “Happy”. In this book Van Hout has colorfully illustrated a number of different fish, each with clearly gestural lines personifying a different emotion (also helped by the expression on each fish’s face). In this book, each emotion is represented in the fish through use of color and line. The students discussed why they thought a particular fish was represented by certain colors or lines to describe a particular feeling. Students shared their own synesthesia around feelings, conveying what colors and types of lines they associate with a certain feeling.

©Mies van Hout
©Mies van Hout
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1st Grade – Frida Kahlo-inspired self-portraits

1st Grade – Frida Kahlo-inspired self-portraits

 Description of the Unit – Frida Kahlo-inspired self-portraits

Students will explore Frida Kahlo’s iconic self-portraits and, using their observations of her work, create their own, including at least one “spirit” animal in the portrait with them.

Self portrait with Bonito, 1941

Relationship to life –

Frida Kahlo was a prolific painter whose most painted subject was herself. She often painted herself with various animals by her side, such as monkeys, parrots, hummingbirds and deer. Some of these were her real life pets, others were animals she identified with. If students had to choose animals that they personally identify with, what animals would they be, and why?

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