I promised some very excited 1st graders that I would post the link to a Rousseau "jungle-maker" on the National Gallery of Art website. The students have really gotten into the idea that Rousseau imagined all the details in his jungle scenes... and that they could too. I gave students paper, markers, crayons, and lots of Rousseau imagery to get them started. The only requirement was that their jungle contain five animals or larger details. I think the imaginations of our 1st graders are pretty active...
In April we will have a "visiting art museum" come to Kennedy featuring work by Henri Rousseau. After the exhibit comes to Kennedy some Rousseau--inspired student art will be on show at the Hastings Public Library. It's only March 1st... I know, I know. But with spring break coming and most of a class devoted to enjoying the traveling exhibit, we needed to get creating. We looked at some of Rousseau's work and viewed a digital reading of The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau. First graders know Rousseau lived in France, he didn't start painting until he was an adult, and that people did not always say nice things about his work. Students were most excited by Tiger In the Jungle (Surprise!) and began the first layer of jungles today with tissue paper. To begin this project students are asked to select four cardboard shapes from a box and color them in a way that makes them interesting. Then we view some abstract artworks and talk about why someone would make a painting or sculpture that is just colors, lines, or shapes without looking like a certain thing. I point out that at a certain time in history art that did not look "real" was laughed at or not put in art museums. I was not anticipating our unseasonably warm winter weather when 1st grade began these paintings of cardinals. There were two skill areas we focused on during our work. During the drawing phase we combined basic shapes like ovals and triangles to make the more complex shape of the cardinal's body. In the painting phase we concentrated on using proper pressure when holding a paint brush in order to control our brushstrokes. This was especially important when making the skinny arms of snowflakes or the individual needles on a pine bough. We observed photographs of actual cardinals when we added details like the eyes and shadows in the feathers. The end results showed the hard work of the artists and are making the Kennedy hallways feel winter-like even if the weather outside doesn't match. Abstract art can be hard for younger students to understand. They know it is not realistic, but cannot grasp how the artists come up with their ideas. First graders looked at the work of artist Joan Miro', who did many abstract paintings with human-like figures. We talked about why Miro' might have wanted to change the shapes of the people and use ideas from his imagination. To think like Miro', we played "Roll A Miro". Students added a new piece to their characters with each roll of the dice. (I would love to site this game, but every art teacher that posts about it says they got it somewhere else!) We colored our characters with a thick layer of crayon. Crayon and watercolor do not get along.. if they were on the playground the waxy crayon would always be shoving the watercolor! While this is not great in a friendship, in art this technique is called resist. We chose two or three color groups from the color wheel for blending in our backgrounds. |
|