Corn-dinsky

(This lesson is inspired by a genius post over here)

Artist: Wassily Kandinsky

Squares with Concentric Circles, 1913

Materials:

 paper, sharpies, liquid watercolor (red & yellow & blue), yellow, red and green tempera paint, small paintbrushes or qtips, paper cups, pencils with flat erasers, Indian corn for a visual aid, a square of toilet paper per kid

About the artist:

WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944)

Squares with Concentric Circles, 1913

Pronounced: Can-Din-Skee

Art Style: Expressionism, Abstract Art

Art Terms: primary colors, complementary colors, abstract

Powerpoint Presentation Here

Meet the Artist: A couple of brief articles about the Russian Kandinsky - considered by many to be the "Father of Abstract Art" here and here. Something especially interesting: at an early age Kandinsky’s father realized his son had an extremely unique gift, something called synaesthesia cognate. This means that he could see sounds and hear colors. He left law at age 30 to become an artist, hugely moved by the work emerging from the French impressionists. Color was always the focus of his art rather than subject, and he is thought to have created some of the earliest completely non-representational and abstract paintings in modern art.

Discussion Ideas: As you look at Squares with Concentric Circles, ask the discussion questions: (1) What's going on in this picture? (2) What makes you say that? and (3) What more can you find?

Other ideas you may want to bring out in your discussion: (1) Kandinsky thought that colors and music were very much alike and that colors had sounds. For example, to him yellow sounded like a loud trumpet. What would this painting sound like? (2) Kandinsky was a pioneer of abstract art. Abstract means that the picture doesn't have a recognizable subject. What do you think is the subject of this painting? (3) Color: using the color wheel slide you can briefly explain the color wheel. Primary colors are red, blue, yellow. Kandinsky liked to play with colors, choosing combinations that were interesting to him. Opposite colors together (complementary colors) make the other one pop out more (red/green, blue/orange, violet/yellow). Sometimes it's fun to have kids wearing these colors come up and stand back to back. Have the kids point out combinations of color in Kandinsky's painting that demonstrate this.

Kandinsky once said, "everything starts with a dot." So does the painting work in this fall project.

Activity:

1. Have the kids draw the shape of a corn, with a sharpie, kind of big

2. have them draw a grid on the corn (not too tiny of squares as they need to paint inside each one separately)

3. Have them fill in the grid with an array of yellow orange red brown watercolor (encourage mixing of colors but try to also encourage a little space between the kernels so it doesn’t turn into one big blob of brown!)

4. Using the flat eraser of a pencil like a stamp, have them stamp tempera paint on their painted kernels to make circles. (The TP is to clean their eraser if they switch colors)

5. Using tempera paint, add the husks on the sides of the cob

Poinsettias Flower Art: Raoul Dufy

Raoul Dufy, Pink Bunch, 1940

student work:

About the Artist: Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), "the painter of joy", was a french Fauvist painter.  Fauvism was an outgrowth of Impressionism (<- think Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir). As a young art student in Paris, Dufy attended exhibits of the Impressionists and was influenced by their loosening use of color and form, but when he saw Matisse's groundbreaking paintings, drenched in bright colors, he knew he'd found his people: Les Fauves ("the wild animals"). Matisse's Fauves emphasized bright colors, wild brushstrokes, bold contrasts, and were a step closer to abstraction than the Impressionists. Dufy's work throughout his career was characterized by its optimism, color, and beauty, even in his later years as he branched off into fabric and stationary design.

Using this simple slideshow of Dufy's work, discuss using our questions: What do you see? What makes you say that? What more can you find? If you have the opportunity in your discussion you might to bring out the following topics:

• color - can you find complementary colors in these paintings? What do they do when they are placed next to each other? How do the colors make the paintings feel?
• repetition - do you see where he uses the same colors or shapes over and over to create a pattern?
• realistic or abstract? Was Dufy trying to paint the way the flowers actually looked? Or the way the flowers felt to him? (Sometimes paint can capture something that words can't!)

This project uses Dufy's loose and colorful flowers as inspiration. The original activity comes from Deep Space Sparkle (click there for more examples).

Supplies: red yellow white tempera paints, blue and green tempera or liquid watercolor paint, paper plates, q-tips, foam brushes, watercolor paper, sponges cut into leaf shapes - 1 per kid (and, totally optional - maybe a real poinsettia plant to use as a visual aid)

Activity: 

• using a q-tip, paint little centers of the poinsettia plants on your papers
• use the leaf sponges, dip into red/white paint and make petals around the centers
• paint a background color with the foam brush that contrasts with the red flowers (green or blue) around your page full of poinsettias

SaveSave
SaveSave

Islamic Stained Glass Windows and Tiles

The Nasir Ol Mok "Pink Mosque" in Irans

slideshow can be downloaded here

Here's another stained glass option for the holidays (other stained glass lessons: medieval rose window, and Chagall. See sidebar for those). The stained glass seen in Islamic structures is different from medieval stained glass, or figural, because the designs are geometric and pattern based, and don't include the human form. In the slideshow you can see many examples of the gorgeous and intricate stained glass found inside the Nasir Ol Mok "Pink Mosque", in Iran. This building was designed specifically for the morning light - as it comes through the stained glass, the colored light spills on the persian rugs to create an otherworldly kaleidoscope of color and pattern. (For better pictures than the slideshow, go look at this article).

As you go through the slides with the kids, questions you might ask in addition to "What can you see? What more can you find? What makes you say that?" could be - what do you think the designers of the glass windows' goal was? How does the weather affect one's experience of this place? How do you think you'd feel, standing in that pool of color?

The art activity for this lesson is pretty flexible - you can take it a few different directions depending on the age of the students and how much time you have.

Option 1 - Stained glass out of parchment paper 

from artsyartfulamy.com

Have the kids draw a geometric pattern or design on parchment paper using black sharpies and markers (colored sharpies and also crayola water-based work on parchment). You might want to download and print out a few templates of geometric designs for the kids to trace - they can combine the templates for added creativity. (Templates can be downloaded here, just scroll down about halfway through the article and to find the templates. They have a bunch of different shapes...). Then use black construction paper to create the exterior of the window, as seen above, and glue on.

Option 2 - tiles out of card stock

from mrsbrowsart.com

Using sharpies and markers, have the kids create symmetrical designs on card stock. The ones shown above are circles but bonus points for using some of the shapes found in the templates linked in the above activity.

Day of the Dead

image via art projects for kids

Here's a link to a great October project, and a powerpoint presentation is here.

Day of the Dead Historical Background: Celebrated Nov. 1 &amp; 2 in the hispanic culture, the Day of the Dead is a gathering holiday about celebrating loved ones who have passed away. Traditions include making private family altars and decorating with orange marigolds. A common symbol of the day is the skeleton – often decorated with elaborate patterns, or dressed up in a humorous way.

This art lesson focuses on the idea of decorating a skull. In addition to making a symmetrical pattern, students will practice facial proportion.

Materials: black construction paper, pencil, white or silver sharpie, cardboard skull template

1. Pass out skull template. Using the last slide in the powerpoint presentation, discuss how eyes are in the middle of the head (not up on the forehead, where people tend to want to draw them), and how the nose is halfway down from there, and the mouth halfway down from the nose. Have kids pencil in the facial features.

2. Once these are in place, pass out the sharpies and have them outline those, and begin their patterns. Encourage them to make them symmetrical: if a flower is on one side of the face, see if you can mirror it on the opposite side. Other ideas are dots and swirls.

3. Then let the kids go for it! The contrast of the white or silver sharpie against the black construction paper makes these look so great.

VARIATION: Collage Skulls

materials: construction paper, cardboard skull template, scrapbook/collage papers with patterns/colors, glue, (optional - tissue paper flowers)

1. Pass out skull template. Point out how eyes are in the middle of the head not on forehead. Have kids trace template onto patterned paper, cut, and glue to their large piece of construction paper.

2. Have them cut and glue onto their skull eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Then let them go to town adding whatever else they want to bling up their skull. 

Rose Windows with Paper Snowflake Tracery

ROSE WINDOW, STRASBOURG CATHEDRAL, AUSTRIA, 1290
(rebuilt in 1845 following damage from a storm)
Art Style: Gothic
Art Terms: Stained Glass, Rose Window
Activity: Watercolor, Paper Cutting
Materials: coffee filters, markers (ones that are water-soluble, so anything in our closet OTHER than the colored sharpies), black construction paper, scissors, glue stick, and a spray bottle filled with water

This is a nice project to do in December as it is festive and wintery, yet you can still have a substantive discussion about an important bit of architectural art history, rose windows.

Meet the Artist: This slide show has a picture of 2 rose windows. The first is a picture of the rose window in the Strasbourg Cathedral in Austria and is better suited for this lesson since it has more complicated metal work which is more like the effect the kids will create with the black construction paper & scissors. (We have another stained glass lesson which uses the Matisse window, the second slide, as its visual and I just stuck them in the same slide show for convenience). The Strasbourg Cathedral is one of the finest examples of Gothic Architecture in a Cathedral (here's a quick article from wikipedia).

Discussion: 1. What do you see? 2. What makes you say that? 3. What more can you find?

To deepen the discussion, other ideas you could bring in: (1) the idea of symbols. What do you think the designer of the window was trying to say? Do you think that the context of this piece of art, a church, has anything to do with that? (2) Pattern and design: do you see repetition in the design? Why do you think the artist might repeat the design over and over? (3) How do the artist's choice of materials (glass, metal), affect the final product of the art? (How is a window different than a painting, for example? A window requires light in order to see it…How could that be a symbol inside of a church?)

Activity: Have the kids make a pattern on the coffee filter with the markers, and then spray the decorated filter with the spray bottle to see the colors blend together. (*You might want to warn them that when you spray, their design will become blurred. The spraying helps the coffee filter to eventually be more transparent but for some kids, this was traumatic!)  OR you can spray first and the kids can decorate the filters wet. It's totally up to you. The difference is that they can make a more precise drawing with it dried but it doesn't really matter because either way it will end up kind of blurry and abstract.

While that dries, have the kids trace the coffee filter on the black construction paper, making a circle of an identical size. Have them cut out the circle, then fold in half, then in half again (it will look like a piece of pie). Demonstrate how to cut into the sides to make a snowflake. Unfold, glue the coffee filter to it. Voila!

Variation for younger grades: We pre-cut the circles, folded them in half, and drew very simple cutting lines on the circles (if you fold the circle more than once, the kids don't really have the hand strength to cut through that many layers of paper).

Student Work:

(sorry for the blurry pic!)

Stained Glass

HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954)

Rose Window, 1954

Pronounced: Mah-Tees

Art Style: Modern, but influenced by Gothic

Art Terms: stained glass, symbols

Activity: Collage

Medium: tissue paper on transparency

Materials: transparency paper (cut in half), tissue paper, elmer's glue (watered down by half), sponge brushes, scissors

Meet the Artist: (We have a Matisse Smart About Art book in the closet that you may want to read to the class, if time provides). Other great information to prepare yourself - this brief article here; also this link here is neat, with photographs of him, etc. Also this is an interesting blog post about the chapel where this window is found.

Discussion Ideas: Using this slideshow, pass the first slide and focus on the second, which is an image of a Rose Window designed by Matisse for a small chapel in NY (the other windows in the church are designed by Chagall - check it out! It's gorgeous). Use the discussion questions to open your discussion - (1) What do you see? (2) What makes you say that? (3) What more can you find? 

Depending on the kids ages, you could deepen the discussion by asking about: pattern and design - is there repetition? What does that contribute to the piece? Color - how does that affect the piece? What are symbols? (an object that stands for an idea) What do you think Matisse was trying to say? Materials - how does Matisse's use of glass affect the way this piece feels? Does light coming through the window change the way this piece of art might feel throughout the day?

Activity: Have the kids think of a shape that has meaning to them - like a personal symbol - and have them cut it out using a piece of tissue paper. Set aside. Have the kids then cut smaller pieces for their backgrounds (if the kids are in the younger grades, I'd pre-cut these for sure). Cover the transparency with watered-down glue using the sponge brush and then have the kids go to town laying in their designs. If you have time for their pieces to dry you could have them trace over the edges with sharpie to simulate metal tracery like in the windows but that might be tricky, time-wise (I'll probably skip that when I do it).