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.

Week 4: Cursive Insects

Here was a fun project inspired by several of my favorite art teacher blogs.  Its also another way to incorporate the kids' names into a  project.

The first step was to have the student choose two different colors of paper, one for the background and one for the "insect."  They fold the foreground page in half long-ways.  With the fold down, they write their name large and in cursive with the fold as the baseline. Ignore descenders.  Then they can make a bubble outline around their name or just eyeball it. Using scissors they cut ut their name, making sure to leave enough areas along the fold so as to not separate the two halves. (even if you do that fine, though). Then they unfold, glue down and decorate.  Sometimes they end up looking like aliens or birds or frogs. It a lot of fun. Much like an inkblot test.  Can you decode the names?

Week 17: Warm, Cool, Foreground, Background

This week with the  3rd and 4th graders I did a oil/chalk pastel project.  My instructions included explaining a bit about warm and cool colors and having them use those shades to make a make-believe landscape, utilizing foreground in one color range and a background in the other.

My examples were a warm sunset sky with cool foreground hills, or a night sky with warm foreground.  I had them use black paper for dramatic effect.

Many kids decided to be a bit more illustrative and draw other elements, but many ended up with some interesting abstract looking images.

Week 16: Picasso Musicians

I try to introduce several famous artists to the kids and I have already used Van Gogh as an inspiration and will use Eric Carle (of kid's book fame) and George O'Keefe later this spring. This week I used Picasso as inspiration. Namely his "Three Musicians" painting which is a great Abstract but also fun theme for the kids.

Instead of paint I had the kids use scraps of colored paper, which we have a special box for in the art closet.  No full sheets of construction paper were harmed in this lesson, which is great because sometimes the kids want one tiny piece of yellow and grab a whole sheet.  Plus having the odd scraps made them think a bit more "out of the box."  Ironically the more you think about trying to make a person  out of the scraps, the harder it is. When doing the sample, I found it worked to just wing it for best results. Also, the younger kids had an easier time since they were less goal-oriented and perfectionists, compared to the older kids.

As a finishing touch, I has some leftover shiny wrapping paper and some very nice ribbon with music notes that helped add a festive whimsical note to the work.

Week 2: Primary color & pattern names

The first week was a representational self portrait. Week two was an abstract. My variation was to have the child write their name in black marker in a stylized fashion on the paper in big or small letters.

Then I had them add other black lines to form patterns and cells for coloring. I told them about the three primary colors and told them to fill the page with these three colors and pattern. I was amazed with the type of pattersn that they came up with. One child gripped all three colored pencils in one hand and scribled which added a very nice texture. Several took a long time making each pattern and cell very intricate, while others just went for it. Many did not finish in the 30 minutes that we have, but will finish over the week.

The fun thing was that the kids work ended up unintentionally looking like the work of Spanish painter Juan Miro. Here are some of his paintings:





Here is the work of a first grader!

Here is the work of a third grader!




Coming next week: Van Gogh Sunflower still life with an emphasis on warm and cool colors.