Rousseau Jungle Landscapes

This is an oldie but goodie for my 3^rd graders.  I find the years that I decide to embark on this landscape adventure, 3^rd graders love it and have such pride in their completed artwork.  This is important for the effectiveness of an art lesson.  I have certainly tried other ways to teach depth but I always come back to this one.  I love that Henri Rousseau is a well-known Folk artist and I think it is pretty neat that he was never to a jungle yet he painted jungles based on pictures.  This is a fact that most 3^rd graders can relate to … not many have been to a jungle. 

The focus of the project was to show depth using many techniques from dividing our space into foreground, middle ground, and a background to overlapping and size variation.  We even touched on how the appearance of colors and details lessen with greater distances.  Another thing we noticed with Rousseau’s jungle landscapes was the vast variety of plant life.  We also saw the rainbow of greens any how this variety makes the artwork much more interesting.

After some visual thinking strategies involving Rousseau’s art, we began by carefully observing and drawing a variety of plants.  Then we got to drawing some landscapes.

 

Jasper Johns Collagraphs

In all honesty,  I used to dislike the artwork of Jasper Johns.  I thought it was boring, sloppy, and meaningless.  My opinion began to change once I saw his art hanging in the HIGH museum.  It was this experience that led me to introduce Jasper Johns to 3rd Graders in the form of collagraph print making. Now, I enjoy his art even more.  Thank you 3rd grade for opening my eyes.

 

After reading bios on 3 different artists (one being Jasper Johns), I showed this slide show

http://prezi.com/cz-9fqwseazf/untitled-prezi/?auth_key=566ebdf1c96c125428d34b1bc87cfe8c20c06f22&kw=view-cz-9fqwseazf&rc=ref-16871561.  At first I did not reveal the name of the artist that made the artwork. Instead, we investigated an artwork till we figured it out.  Funny, many started out by not being too keen on his art but then changed their mind.  Hum?

 

preparing our prints for display - adding oil pastels to the negative spaces, mounting and signing our art



flag

initials

meaningful numbers

date of something special

place setting

name

 Jasper Johns also did an artwork called Cups for Picasso.  Some of us had some time to make our version of a friend's profile. I certainly wish I had taken more photos of these.

 

action shot - adding pattern  to the negative space

 

Matisse's Moving Compositions

By 3rd grade we know the name Matisse.  We have seen many of his artworks from his paintings to his collages.  This time around, Matisse showed us about arranging an interesting composition. 

 

Henri Matisse La Négresse, 1952, paper collage
 

We also talked about, considered and applied what we know about the color schemes ... we even created our own colors while painting papers to use in this artwork. We used geometric shapes in the background and organic shapes for our figure. We strived to lead the viewer's eyes around the composition and communicate an action and possibly even a feeling.

Romero Britto spreads positive feelings

3rd grade went to town with these.  After watching a slideshow, we brainstormed things that make us happy ... positive things, in the spirit of Britto.  I included a link that will take you to my Prezi (I hope?) slideshow about Romero Britto.   

 

http://prezi.com/wgdxg31wnb3n/romero-britto/?auth_key=175ff0b27cb9453811f7acd9a07fac59c70d950f

Self Portraits.

 We decided to go incognito for this year's Self Portrait.

Artists all over the world make self portraits. We came up with thoughts as to why.  Here are just some of our ideas:

• for fun
• for practice
• to help the future learn about us
• in place of a photograph (cameras sure have changed the world)
• to make a version of yourself that is imaginary
• to share feelings and emotions and other things about your personality
• to show how "cool" you are...

Scream Parodies

In 3rd grade we had lots of fun poking fun at Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Sream. Munch loved to show drama with color, movement with lines, and intensity in emotions. We stayed true to this and then added our own personal touch by adding ourselves.