Fabulous Art with Fabulous Kids!

First Graders rocked the house with their shape self-portraits.  We looked at the Swiss artist Paul Klee and learned about his life...he was an art teacher, a poet, and a violinist!  Definitely a man of the Arts.  We looked at a variety of abstract and realistic artworks, and even played a game of identifying which works were abstract, and which were realistic.  We looked over Klee's work and decided he was quite abstract.  A discussion of lines, shapes, and artwork titles helped us understand what we were looking at.  Sometimes a title means everything. 


When we looked at "Head of a Man," we knew we were about to do something interesting.  Students were given a plastic bag full of tag board shapes, and had to make our self-portrait using only shapes.  It was such fun to see how everybody's work came out.  We first drew with pencil, then outlined them with marker, and then colored them with crayons that matched the color of the marker they used.  Students had lots of fun making their faces all kinds of colors. Some students used wild colors along with their wild shapes, so we had some very interesting self-portraits!  I really love this lesson.  Take a look at the results:

  

Miro-Inspired Abstract Paintings

 Don't you love Joan Miro's work?  It's so colorful and fun.  I love showing my students his art because they enjoy the lines and the colors, and how he's put it all together.

First grade got a great look at Miro recently and we discussed all the things we see all the time in his work.  The way the lines are so organic, the way he repeats certain designs like his asterisk-looking "starry things" (I love how they describe what they see!), circles, large dots at the end of lines, geometric shapes that somehow seem organic...repetition of colors...what a fabulous way to make art!

We discussed how he was a part of the surrealist movement, and that his works are dream-like.
It was fun talking about all the things we dream and how in our dreams we can fly, or dogs can talk...  and so we got to talking about what sorts of mediums would be good dream mediums.  And we came upon something new, that our first graders had never tried: ater-soluble oil pastels!  I showed them how they worked---draw on the lines you want, fill in here and there, and then get a paintbrush and some water and go to town.  Here are some of the results.  Love it!

Fabulous art by fabulous artists.