Happy Belated Birthday Alma Thomas!

I believe I actually discovered Alma Thomas thanks to Pinterest. See?! All those hours I've spent losing myself in a Pinterest vortex were worth it! Ha. No probably not, but I do really love Alma Thomas. And I have to admit that I missed the chance to post this on her actual birthday, so here is a Happy Belated Birthday to Alma Thomas (9/22)! I just couldn't stand to miss it (although technically I suppose I did miss it) because this is one of my favorite lessons of all-time. So let's begin with a little background on our famous, but little-known artist.

Alma Woodsey Thomas is another inspiring artist, who like Grandma Moses, didn't get her start until later in life. She taught art for 38 years in Washington D.C., and occasionally showed her work in shows featuring African American artists, but didn't begin to paint seriously until she was 69 (she was born in 1891 so what year would that have been?). However, by then she had painful arthritis, which made painting difficult. Most people would've given up at this point but when a museum wanted to display her art, she went about creating a new, more abstract style with bright pure color in shapes or lines that still hinted at natural forms.  Instead of telling you what her art does or how it makes you feel, why don't you take a look at the following images (and find lots more online) and pretend to be an art critic writing an article about her for the paper? Have fun and be descriptive!

The Eclipse

Moving Heaven and Earth

Starry Night and the Astronauts

Untitled from Music Series

So when I was preparing the art project, I knew the younger kids in particular would have a super hard time resisting the urge to paint large strokes with their paintbrushes instead of making small dashes close together. No chance most kids would have the self-control to be so deliberate as to leave the nice white lines in between colors. And that's what makes it really pop! So I put away the paintbrushes and got out building blocks:

We looked at examples of her work, talked about what made it unique, and what they should strive for if they wanted their painting to look like hers. I really emphasized her use of repetition and variety. I then demonstrated how to use the blocks to print the shapes on the paper and let them go to town. It worked so well, that I did it the same way for my older group of students, except I gave them Legos so they could make smaller dashes. A few of them resisted, so I let the older students use brushes if they promised to leave white :) Look at how awesome my 8 year-old daughter's turned out:

Later, we tried it again but with gluing pre-cut scraps shapes on. This worked really well too and was good for the pre-K/kindergarten crowd in particular. Here's my son's finished project (it used to have nice, bright colors but has been hanging in a window and the sun sadly bleached them out):  

So much fun! One last cool fact - her painting Resurrection is the first painting by an African American woman to hang in the White House's permanent collection. So Happy Belated Birthday Miss Thomas!

Check out the article here for a more in-depth history.