TP IS WIRED

To conclude our unit on LINE and COLOR students examine the sculptures by American artist Alexander Calder.  We discussed how he manipulates wire to create a  variety of lines such as SPIRAL, WAVY, CURLY, and LOOPED.  Students learned how Calder used inspiration from the Ringling Brothers Circus to make his wire sculptures.  Next, we brainstormed all the different ways we can manipulate wire and came up with bending, twisting, zig zagging, curling, connecting, and curving.  Based on these techniques, students created their own wire sculptures paying careful to the principle of design BALANCE and element of design FORM.  For the previous class we defined PAINTING FROM OBSERVATION as painting what you see in front of you.  All of our young artists carefully observed the lines and colors in their sculptures and transferred it to their large scale

paintings only using the primary colors plus black and white. We had fun at the end of class trying to match each sculpture to its correct observational painting.  

Haring in The House Again!

This is the second time I have used Keith Haring and the other project I did with kindergarten can be found HERE. For this project, transitional primary studied mural artist Keith Haring and made these large scale paintings in response to his work.  First, we learned how during Haring's childhood, he loved to watch his dad draw cartoons.  Once he got older, he moved to New York City to study art, and started showing up in subway stations drawing cartoon like characters on the empty

advertisement black boards.

Keith Haring

Keith Haring

We discussed why someone would want to make art outside or in public areas versus for a Museum.  Students concluded that it cost money to go to a Museum and art that was public could be  enjoyed by EVERYONE, rich or poor. Additionally, we dissected the message behind many of his murals to be world peace and for people to love everyone regardless of their differences.

To create our own Haring inspired art, we first played freeze dance and for each time we stopped the music, our students would come up with a pose and then have their body traced.  For the next class, we practiced using the primary colors to paint secondary colors inside of our bodies.  After our bodies were filled with primary and secondary hues, we added white to create tints.  The last day was spent creating a variety of lines in our bodies from spiral, curvy, wavy and loopy to zigzag and pointed.  This project wraps up our unit on line and color.