Faith Ringgold Inspired Personal Narrative Quilts

Our first grade artists analyzed the painted quilts of Faith Ringgold and discussed why artists create art.  We came to the conclusion Ringgold created her quilts to tell stories about her childhood and important people throughout her life.  After several weeks of collage exploration, we were ready to make a picture about what we like to do with our family.  Students were able to choose from a variety of different patterned and textured paper to bring their personal narratives to life.  We used the printmaking technique of gadget stamping to create our borders using erasers, cardboard pieces, cubes, and bottle tops,  as every Ringgold quilt was not complete without one! All of the students collages will be joined to form a class quilt.  In an effort to integrate art and literacy, our first graders will be writing about the "small moment" they expressed in their collages with their homeroom teachers.

                               Tar Beach, Faith Ringgold

 

       Dancing at the Louvre, Faith Ringgold 1990

 

 

 

 

Class Quilt Display

  

I like to eat dinner with my family

I like to snorkel with my family.

 

I like to eat dinner with my family.

I like to play with my family.

I like to hike with my family.

I like to play soccer with my family.

I like to eat with my family.

I like to go outside with my family.

I like to have dinner with my family.

I like to go to Spain with my family for Christmas.

I like to go to the beach with my family.

I like to bike with my family.

 

 

Wonderful Wood Sculptures

Our second grade artists have been practicing making sculptures out of paper and focusing on different techniques to transform the flat paper into something three dimensional.  After those sculptures were completed, for this lesson we examined the work of artist NANCY GRAVES and discussed how she used different found objects to make her sculptures.  We began making our own sculptures with different wood scraps arranging in interesting ways.  Our young artists quickly realized their sculptures needed to be BALANCED in order to stand up and made adjustments as they were working.  Next, we were able to bring in our own found objects such as buttons, paper clips, and beads to add details to our work.  The final step was painting them with an emphasis on repeating one color throughout our sculpture to keep the viewer constantly looking at every angle.

Nancy Graves in front of  one of her sculptures

 

More work from Nancy Graves 

 

Step 1: Building our sculptures with wood scraps and found objects:

 

 

Step 2: Adding Color!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of our finished product below: