Gustav Klimt people

I use famous artists as a gateway into a weekly art lesson frequently. This week was Gustav Klimt, a turn of the century Austrian artist most famous for his highly decorative paintings/collage of people, especially using vibrant abstract patterns and backgrounds.
You may know his "The Kiss"

To translate this into soemthing that the kids could do in 30 minutes, I had them start with yellow paper, but this would be beautiful on gold paper or with gold paint.

I also had them choose a face or body from a fashion magazine as a starting point, since many of Klimt's paitings have a realistic looking head/torso and then he explodes witha  riot of color and pattern. They glued this scrap on the paper.

Then they drew the body, or at least a suggestion of body/torso with flowing lines and lots of pattern. This was an interesting example of realism meets abstract art.