Art Lesson For Kids - Inspired by Faith Ringgold!

Check out my new art lessons for kids videos on my YouTube channel Art Immersion @Art Lessons For Kids - Inspired by Famous Artists!

First up - Faith Ringgold:

Materials needed:

Option #1 - Paper (light, colored, or dark), pencils or whatever coloring material you would like to use, colored 1 inch paper squares

Directions:

1. Think of a place that you love, somewhere really cool that you want to be yours (Disneyland, Hawaii, etc.

2. Draw a colorful picture of you flying over that place, leaving a one inch border for the squares

3. Glue the paper squares on inside the border

4. Optional: Decorate the paper squares with fun patterns! 

 My kids' finished products:

 

 

Happy Birthday Emily Carr!

I was late in finding Emily, but couldn't be happier to know about her now. What a cool, resilient, determined, independent, talented woman to study! She lived in Victoria, British Columbia from December 13, 1871-March 2, 1945. At a time when women just weren't famous artists, she rose to become a Canadian icon. And cool fact, she was a writer AND a painter! Also cool fact, she met Georgia O-Keeffe (another strong and famous female painter) in New York in 1930. And in 1971 and 1991, Canadian postal stamps were made in her honor!

But enough with the random cool facts. Watch this video for a quick biographical introduction. Or read about her here and look through a gallery of her works.

Project time!

Looking at her work with your kids, ask questions like these: what do you think makes her art unique? How would you describe her style? What colors did she use most often? What subject matter(s) do you see? What kinds of lines did she use for her skies? For her trees? 

Really emphasize the organic, flowy nature of her lines. And then this is a great opportunity to discuss value (the lightness or darkness of tone and color)! You can find tons of value exercise worksheets to print out online to get warmed up. And then doing a painting like Emily Carr provides a great practice at mixing their own colors! I told my students we were doing a landscape, but keeping it simple. Three trees at most, some grass and maybe a mountain at most. We first focused just on the sky. I only gave them blue, white and if they insisted, purple and told them to think of her lines, think about gradually changing color from light to dark, and to fill all or most of the page with their sky. We let that dry. After it had, I gave them more colors and encouraged them to add trees/mountains/land on top. I LOVE their paintings!!! Look at how awesome and unique they are: 

Best of the Best Michelangelo

Here's my second, longer video on Michelangelo that goes into more depth on what I believe to be his 5 best artworks. Watch and then let me know if you agree! What would you choose instead?

5 - _____________________ - Why is it so significant (2 reasons)?
4 - _____________________ - How was it made? How big is he?
3 - _____________________ - Why is his head so big?
2 - _____________________ - Why was it so difficult to paint? How long did it take?
1 - _____________________ - Why does it need to be protected?

Bonus questions:
What is mannerism?
What did Michelangelo think of "constructive criticism?"
Why do you need to know the rules of art?
Did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel lying on his back?

More biographical info:
-For elementary aged kids try here
-For more, including a cool interactive panaromic view of the ceiling, try here or here
-Khan Academy's section on Michelangelo can be found here

Michelangelo in the News:
-For an in-depth article on The David and his weak ankles, try here
-Leonardo or Michelangelo: Who is the Greatest? (it would be great to follow-up this article with one of your own answering the same question!)
-For more about the attack on La Pieta, read here

Videos to watch:
-Mati and Dada's animated short story on Michelangelo
-Artrageous' fun, in-depth look into the difficulty of painting the Sistine Chapel
-Crash Course's look into whether the Renaissance was really a thing

Happy Birthday Jackson Pollock!

Jackson Pollock was born in 1912, so he would be enjoying his early hundreds if he was still around today. Sadly he died back in 1956. I must be getting old because I look at those numbers and think he sure was awfully young to go. He only got about 20 years to share his ground-breaking art with the world, and that includes his years as a student. The best part, and the bit that makes him the most fun for kids to emulate, is that he combined the act of painting, the movement, with the painting itself. 

You could say he was involved with his paintings. :) He said, "On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting."

That resonates on a very basic level. In fact, for toddlers and young children, the act of moving the crayon across the page is more important than the finished product. But for most of us, that changes as we get older. My daughter had SO much fun dancing as she literally flung paint around from the bottom of her brush. Anyway, you could read a short biography on him here.

For the project, I had bought massive rolls of paper, because if we're going to do this, we were going to do it right! He painted on enormous canvases, so we should too :) (if you used chalk paint or anything that washes off easier than the leftover house paints we used, you could even have your whole driveway be your canvas!!) With the older kids, we started out taking a survey. I asked them on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being not important at all and 10 being essential, how important different things are to art. Or in other words, how important are these things to making a piece "good" or not. I listed off a bunch of things like the art is beautiful, the art has a political purpose, the art is in a museum, the art was done by a famous artist, the art has good lines, the art looks realistic, the art is impressively big, this kind of art has never been done before, the art took skill to make, the art makes you think, the art tells a story, etc. We read "Action Jackson," and watched this short video of the artist himself working. So cool to see the real artist in action! I asked them each to point out something they'd noticed about his style or techniques. They couldn't wait to get started! I gave them the option of collaborating on a really huge sheet, or doing their own smaller work.

Darn North Dakota wind caused some problems, but overall it was a hit! And they turned out pretty impressive too! Oh and my bathroom looked like a color wheel had exploded in it. Make sure you have access to LOTS of soap and water if you give this a try. And a press washer for your driveway. Tee hee. Oh and if at all possible, do your best to discourage intentional paint flinging at fellow students, but I wouldn't mention it if they haven't started on their own. Better not to give them ideas! Ha!

To see examples of students' work, check out my original post here. And have fun!!

Happy Birthday Paul Klee!

"One eye sees, the other feels." -Paul Klee

I'm not sure how he got his other eye to do that! Mine just see, although I'm pretty grateful they do that. This birthday boy was born Dec 18th, 1879 in Switzerland. And the artist himself provided us with the perfect birthday painting: 

It's just missing candles and a cake. He's really a fantastically fun artist to teach to kids because of his bright colors and simple shapes and his love of children's art. Everybody likes feeling appreciated and validated and he totally saw children's art as valuable, preferable even possibly when it comes to imagination and creativity. 

 I've used his "Head of a Man" painting before to draw fun self-portraits by tracing a circular plate for the outline and then dividing the face and neck into simple geometric shapes. We used oil pastels to get bright colors - you could even recommend trying different color schemes like warm for the face and cool for the background. Try to get them to really simplify and not worry about even including all the normal facial features or about symmetry. Some kids might take issue with leaving themselves bald but no worries, it's up to them! The goal isn't to copy Klee's head but to start with his idea and make it your own. For younger kids: be silly! For older kids: work at making it feel balanced and practice your technique. Can you get a feeling across in such a simplified form? How can you use the other principles of art to work for you?

However, my really favorite project can be found here on my personal art blog. It was a BIG hit. 

Guess Who in Two #2

I'm super excited to introduce you to our new mystery artist. But he or she really needs no further introduction, since it's all in the video anyway. Let me know if you guessed it!

What was your favorite fact about our mystery artist? 

For additional and current information, check out these articles:

"David's Ankles: How Imperfections Could Bring Down the World's Most Perfect Statue"

"Leonardo or ___________: Who is the Greatest?"

"The Hidden Meaning of _________'s Creation of Adam"

"Art and Symbolism: The Creation of Adam"

Also, I definitely recommend the book "______________ and the Pope's Ceiling" for serious students. Not a quick read by any means but FASCINATING details about the artist, his methods, the times, the Catholic Church, and anything else at all possibly related. Lots of stuff I haven't found anywhere else.

Happy Birthday Edvard Munch!

All right, so this is not one of the most festive of projects with which to celebrate but Happy Birthday anyway man! Ha. Munch was born December 12, 1863 in Norway and died there in 1844. Norway's pretty fond of the guy. No offense guys, but they don't have a lot of world famous artists to brag about. He never married, called his paintings his children and said, "For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art." Again not a happy birthday thought, but a really serious issue many people struggle with in their lives. Kudos to him for being willing to talk about it and for finding a way to let it out.

Here are some of my favorites of his works that aren't The Scream:

Dance on the Shore

Train Smoke

Melancholy

The Sun - a huge mural

I have wanted to do this project on The Scream by Edvard Munch (not pronounced munch, more like munk) ever since I saw it on Pinterest years ago but have never managed to get around to it. So glad I finally did! Here are some fun or interesting facts I learned about the artist and his incredibly famous painting:

- the first version of The Scream was painted without a figure in front! Can you imagine how much less attention it would've received if that was also his final version?

- The Scream does not refer to the figure standing in the front. It's nature that's screaming. Munch wrote, "I was walking along the road with two of my friends. The sun set. The sky became a bloody red. And I felt a touch of melancholy. I stood still, dead tired. Over the blue-black fjord and city hung blood and tongues of fire. My friends walked on. I stayed behind, trembling with fright. I felt the great scream in nature."

- The Scream was embarrassingly stolen, a horrible blow to national pride revealed during the opening ceremonies of the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer. In 50 seconds. The thieves left a note, which read, "thanks for poor security." One of my students said "that sure was snotty!" It was thankfully recovered although the thieves got off on a technicality.

- 10 years later, it was stolen again! In daylight by men in ski masks with weapons. It took them about 20 seconds! They didn't take as good of care of the masterpiece and it was pretty badly damaged when it was recovered two years later. 

- M & M launched a campaign to sell dark chocolate M & Ms using the popularity of The Scream because of the second theft, unveiled like a masterpiece at the Guggenheim, and promised a reward of 2 million dark chocolate M & Ms as a reward for its return.

- The Scream sold for $119.9 million in 2012, during a recession!

I used these books: Famous Works of Art and How They Got That Way, Edvard Munch, The Modern Life of the Soul (has lots of great images to share), and Get Into Art People, Discover Great Art and Create Your Own! 

We then studied a few different versions of The Scream, noting the intense "blood-red sunset," the way his lines flow and the variety of color in every part of the painting. They recreated it with Nupastels and glued the picture of them self screaming on top. 

My first group:

The second group:

I so rarely have students try to copy a painting but I love how different these turned out while still being the same. And with all of them having the same 12 colors to choose from, while doing them side by side. And they had a blast, so I win!

This next year, I might try to do projects that try to achieve that amazing smoothness in some of the above paintings or the feeling in others. I'll let you know.