Miro Project

I wanted to share a project I taught in Miss Shepstone's 3rd grade yesterday.. and in Mr. Mercuro's class a few weeks ago. This project was developed by Karen Rosenbaum for Mr. Mercuro's 4th grade. It's based on the painting "Woman in Front of the Sun" by Joan Miro. (pronounced Juan Mee-ro, I taught the kids it rhymes with "hero").

I started with a powerpoint that talks about who Joan Miro was, his various paintings and other works in sculpture, mosaic, tapestry, etc. (If you'd like to use the powerpoint I made, please email me at brooke@hellrey.com and I will email you the file.)

We worked on blue construction paper, and used oil pastels. I love using pastels on colored paper because some of the paper shows through the pastels and it almost looks painted. Blue cardstock would have been nice too since it's a little thicker.

You'll need:
blue paper 
a pencil
thick sharpie (not the fine point, in the art closet)
oil pastels (in the art closet)
fixative (in the art closet)

1. Use the ladybug to do a directed draw. Have the kids start in pencil first drawing the body, legs, eye, head, arms, and then the red circle and stars. 

2. Have the kids go over everything with the sharpie. Let them add extra stars, moons, etc. if they feel like they have empty space. Have them sign their work in cursive in the bottom right corner.

3. Start coloring with the oil pastels. Make sure you remind them that the colors will smudge. We started with the eye, then did the red circle, and did the black last.

4. Spray projects with fixative and let dry.

There is a sample project pinned to the wall by the art closet, and some other materials that show you the step by step process that Karen made. 

Have fun!

Matisse Goldfish Variation

I taught this in Miss Shepstone's class yesterday. For the third graders, I thought the paper background might be a little tricky, so I had them paint their backgrounds.

When we finished the goldfish bowl, I had them divide their paper into 3 sections. Then use a different colored crayon to draw a pattern in each section (dots, stripes, hearts, zig zags, etc). Tell them to keep it simple because they have to cover the whole section with it! 

Then when we watercolored, we did the fishbowl first, and then they used a different color for each of their sections. They can paint right over the crayon since it will resist the paint (makes it much faster than trying to paint around all their stripes or dots).

I think they turned out great and the kids are learning better watercolor techniques. The orange brushes that come with the watercolor paints aren't good for these big areas of color... you just can't get enough water on the brush. Grab a set of the green brushes (with the pointy tips). They work really well

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Matisse Project - Grades 3-5

 I just taught the goldfish project in Mr. Mercuro's 4th grade class last Thursday. We started with a powerpoint about Matisse (if anyone is interested in using my slides, email me at brooke@hellrey.com and I will email them to you). 

 

Here are a few tips I learned while working on this project... 

I had them follow along step by step for this project, using the ladybug to show each step. We drew our cylinders by using a ruler and drawing two parallel lines, then drawing an ellipse at the top and trying to match the curve for the bottom and the water line.

Use crayons for: 

1. 3-4 fish (red or orange), 

2. water ripples (white), 

3. specks of light (green and yellow), 

4. seaweed (optional if kids want to).

 

When using the watercolors, have them draw the top water line first, so they know not to go past that top line. Because they are cutting out the fish tank afterwards, they can use the sides of their paper to test their washes. They also don't have to stay in the lines perfectly. We talked about adding lots of water for light colors, and layering blue, green and even yellow to get different shades of water. Have them draw the top part of the cylinder with a light gray (using their black paint, but adding lots of water to get gray).

Here's a few tips on making the patterned background. It's three basic shapes to make the background. 

It's just 1 + 2 + 3 glued onto a larger sheet. We had them fold their patterned papers and cut along the fold. Piece 1 is just a full sheet minus a few inches on the right side. Piece 2 is whatever width they need to reach the end of the paper, but it won't be long enough to reach the bottom edge, so they'll need to piece it. Piece 3 is glued on top of 2 so they don't need to try to match the diagonal line on both piece 2 and 3.

Here are the finished projects!

Matisse Goldfish Project grades 3-5

MATISSE GOLDFISH PROJECT 

I just taught the goldfish project in Mr. Mercuro's 4th grade class last

Thursday. We started with a powerpoint about Matisse (if anyone is

interested in using my slides, email me at brooke@hellrey.com and I will

email them to you).

Here are a few tips I learned while working on this project... I had

them follow along step by step for this project, using the ladybug to

show each step. We drew our cylinders by using a ruler and drawing two

parallel lines, then drawing an ellipse at the top and trying to match

the curve for the bottom and the water line. 

                 Use crayons for: fish (red or orange), water ripples (white), specs

(green and yellow), seaweed (optional if kids want to).

When using the watercolors, have them draw the top water line first, so

they know not to go past that top line. Because they are cutting out the

fish tank afterwards, they can use the sides of their paper to test

their washes. They also don't have to stay in the lines perfectly. We

talked about adding lots of water for light colors, and layering blue,

green and even yellow to get different shades of water. Have them draw

the top part of the cylinder with a light gray.

Here's a few tips on making the patterned background: It's three basic

shapes to make the background. (See the attached drawing) It's just 1 +

2 + 3 glued onto a larger sheet. We had them fold their patterned papers

and cut along the fold. Piece 1 is just a full sheet minus a few inches

on the right side. Piece 2 is whatever width they need to reach the end

of the paper, but it won't be long enough to reach the bottom edge, so

they'll need to piece it. Piece 3 is glued on top of 2 so they don't

need to try to match the diagonal line on the right.

Matisse Lesson 1st grade idea

Yesterday, I did the Matisse collage lesson with the 1st graders in Mrs. Rhode's class. We started with a 9x12 piece of paper and their choice of 3 colored squares. I showed them some pictures of Henri Matisse and talked about his life and work and about how he began to "paint with scissors" after he lost his ability to stand and paint.  We talked about how he would cut figures then arrange them on the floor in front of  him or on the walls around him and have his assistants move them until they were in the spot that fit best for him.

I talked about curved vs. straight lines and how to use the negative and positive pieces of their cutting then sent them to work. They turned out great. Searching for ideas for my older classes I ran into this 1st grade sample work and think I may try this for my 3rd graders.

http://dripdripsplattersplash.blogspot.com/2014/04/matisse-cutouts.html

Mural Activity Feedback

So... I have received some feedback regarding our mural activity, some good, some not so good. The general frustration has been that they aren't turning out to look very good. Here are some suggestions for a better end product that have worked for all grades.

1. Post a grid in the classroom that looks like the back of your poster before it was cut up. Fill in the grid with the artist's names as they are assigned a square.

2. Have the artists sketch with pencil the design they see on their poster square and decide which colors they are going to use to create a match.

3. Using the filled in grid have the artists compare their square to those that surround it. For younger kids you will need to facilitate this, the older kids can move around and compare. One teacher had her class lay out all their sketched squares on a table in the correct order then chose a few artists who had shown previous attention to detail in their work to look at the layout and call students up to the desk to correct and realign so that the end result would match up.  She had a quick alternate activity for kids to be working on during this time at their desks.

4. Have the artists fill in their art with color and compare again.

Hope this helps. I have left a sample from Ms. Pyle's class at the art desk for you to look at.

Angie

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