Kandinsky inspired art projects

Here in Nashville, it is Artober- a monthlong celebration of all things arty around town.  It's a lot of fun.  In our schools, we chose Wassily Kandinsky as a focus artist (he has an AMAZING retrospective exhibit at The Frist Center for the Visual Arts right now).  Here are some of my 3rd and 4th grade responses to his work. 

3rd Grade- we used Kandinsky's concentric circles as inspiration to create these amazing circle weavings.   I have the students plug the hole in the middle with a button for a couple of reasons.  It's cute.  Also, the center of the weaving is often filled with the most mistakes, since it's the beginning, and by the time we get to the edges, the kiddos are much better weavers.  It's a nice way to finish it.  I hot glued the weavings to mat board, and had the kids decorate the edges with colored sharpies.  It allowed for some element of choice in a pretty regimented project.

 

 



4th Grade- Little more complicated.  We looked at a variety of Kandinsky's landscapes from the more realistic to the mostly abstract, discussing how lines and colors can represent a feeling or an object.  I played Vivaldi's 4 seasons, and students sketched lines to each seasonal song.  From there, students created a circle, and divided it into 4 sections, and each section was to represent a season.  I had them use cray-pas to color, and we attempted some blending with baby oil.  This was hard.  Some had a difficult time with the idea of blending.  They wanted to just keep mixing the colors.  Others just colored as usual and put oil on top.  It proved to be a difficult concept that I'm going to have to keep working on.  But, in the end, there were some really great attempts.  Abstract was also a hard concept to teach to the students, I acknowledged that our brains naturally want to "file" everything we see into a definite category; we want to know what something is. And, we just kept trying and adapting.

The Flip Side

Here is the 4th grade side of the "Box Wall Mural" that I told you about last post.  I held two after school art sessions- one for 3rd, and one for 4th grade.  My thought was not to prolong the insanity.  After yesterday's class, what I learned was divide and conquer- and BE SPECIFIC.  So, today, I grouped the kids before they arrived.  It was logical because every 4 boxes was one "Lion" and there had to be cohesion.  So, they had to sit by their partners to share paint and keep an eye on how their colors were matching up.  I tried to put a strong artist in each group, along with one that needed guidance, and a couple of mediums- and it worked well.  Those of us in the teaching world know that there are those who need to "Boss" and those who need to be "Bossed".  I x'd each box with colored markers to indicate the color scheme.  This helped a few students to stay focused.  I also allowed a couple of groups to sit on the floor which freed up table space (even though I about stepped on a few kids).  I am lucky enough to have a parent who will pack these up and deliver them tomorrow, and it will be on to the next crazy project. 

Box Wall Mural

Nashville is trying a really cool thing- to create a giant "Box Wall Mural" which will be displayed at The Hermitage (home of Andrew Jackson) for their fall festival in early October.  It is a community art project- people from all over the community, all walks of life and interests are creating boxes to contribute. It has caught the attention of the Guinness Book of World Records!  Because of the cost involved ($5 a box) it was initially something I felt was prohibitive for my elementary school, but, we got a donor!  So, 32 boxes and an after school art day with 30 (yes, 30) 3rd graders, here's the start.  We are to design the front and back, so tomorrow, we go at it again, only with the 4th graders.  I painted in the design, and then broke it back apart for the kids to paint- I also gave them a "map" by putting colored x's on the parts- so that even though there are slight differences in color and application, the general design is coherent.  Can you tell that we are the Hermitage Lions?  Tomorrow AM, I will sneak in early, and trim up the black lines again, but all in all, they did a great job.  And I am writing this with my feet up in my jammies- I love my kiddos, and I want them to have a variety of art opportunities but MAN, it makes for a looong day.

Freedom

It is Black History Month, and I thought a fitting way to bring that into the art room with my 4th graders would be a lesson on Freedom and Oppression.  After a class discussion on the difference between the two, we paired up and traced our "Profiles".  I had the students work together to trace their partners.  Then, I showed Marc Chagall's " I and the Village" and we talked about Profiles, Abstraction, and the idea of using color for expressive reasons.  I had the students take their profiles, and add images/words of things that represented freedom.  Be it the freedom to listen to whatever music, or eat whatever food, or have whatever friends.  I gave them freedom of choice as to how they would abstract/change their images.  This was a drawing lesson, and we did not spend a great deal of time on it, but I think the students enjoyed it very much, and I'm loving the results.

An Artsy Start to the School Year Continued

For the 4th graders, we are doing some color theory. Students love their name- and they are learning cursive writing. So, we did a repeated line design, which abstracted their name. Then, they chose a color family to use as their color scheme. Some were more successful than others- I thought this one worked well.
I loved the personality that came through in these simple drawings.