4th Grade Jazz Paintings

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I discovered Ray Berman's paintings when I was researching art from southern Africa. Ray Berman grew up in South Africa but moved to Swaziland during Apartheid. He makes colorful abstract paintings that show the influence of the urban jazz music he grew up listening to. My 4th grade students  viewed images of Berman's paintings, like the picture above and compared them to Wassily Kandinsky's Composition VII below.

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Katie on Pinterest

My district's Art curriculum focuses mostly on the Elements of Art but with this project I wanted the students to think more about the Principles with this lesson and what they have in common with music. The students were able to identify rhythm and harmony as being music and art words. It was pretty easy for them to figure out that "rhythm" in Art is  like a visual beat but it took a little more prompting for them to get the definition of harmony. I'm about to tell you a little story of embarrassing myself for the sake of education. I asked the students what it means if people are singing in harmony. One answered "singing the same song". I knew that wasn't quite going deep enough so I asked the student to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and to keep singing no matter what I did. I let him get about half a verse out before I started singing from the beginning in my very best horrible opera voice. The students laughed and then understood when I pointed out that they would have to be singing together, not just the same thing. So "harmony" in Art is the elements working together and looking good together.

And in the next part of the lesson, technology failed me, and later the music teacher saved me. I had found some videos of South African Jazz on YouTube as well as another website that would play South African Jazz music. I tested the link the week before and when I went to play the music for my first class, my district's internet filters had changed and YouTube was blocked. Then the music on my backup website would not play. So instead of listening to jazz while creating abstract paintings, my students painted to REM. Good music, but not quite the same. I talked to our music teacher and she hooked me up for my classes the next week. She brought a bunch of jazz music VHS tapes and showed me how to run the audio from the VCR through the speakers in my classroom. I just had to fast forward through a few speaking parts to get to the music. I can't remember the titles of some of the songs but let's just saw there was some laughter. I had enough paint out at each table* that I didn't need to refill any and was able to paint along with the students (when I wasn't fast forwarding) and we all enjoyed it. It's not uncommon for me to play music while the students paint, but this was one of the first times I had asked the students to paint the music.

*I've found that my students get better results with abstract painting when they are given only the primary colors and white. They can mix any color they want without you having to refill or waste supplies and it keeps everything unified.

The schedule ended up being uneven again so only one class finished the project how I had originally planned. I played music again in the second class period and the students were to draw, cut, and glue an instrument then add lines with oil pastels that showed the beat of the music. I'm kind of glad that the other classes' projects remained abstract paintings because in most of the pieces, I felt the instruments actually took away from the project. I invite you to check out some of the other results below or see more in our Artsonia gallery.

Camryn363 says this about his/her art...

This is a saxaphone. We listened to music while makeing this. The lines are to the beat to the music.

Peighton14 says this about his/her art...

In this picture I made an instrument to go on top of my design. The notes are coming out of the instrument.

African Art Bulletin Board

I really enjoy making bulletin boards- here is the display I created at my 4th-6th grade school to show everyone outside the Art room what the students had been learning about inside the Art room. The background is painted directly on the bulletin board so I don't have to mess with butcher paper unless I really feel like it. I wish I had time to make my own borders every time! This time I cut construction paper into strips that had a consistent width but were different lengths. I just dry brushed an analogous color to add interest then arranged and glued onto black paper which I laminated.

I designed project descriptions with some of the reference images and resources for each project. Copies of these also went to the district Art show so viewers could understand the significance. I added QR Codes in case some iPhone toting parent stopped to look but I just checked and found that nobody has scanned them. I will keep adding QR codes to things just in case, and because they are just fun! I also have a QR code outside each of my classrooms directing people to our Artsonia galleries.

Letters cut from painted paper

Map of Africa with yarn connecting the project to the location of the culture 

2nd Grade Kalahari Animal Silhouettes

 This is the lesson my 2nd graders completed for the African Art themed project the Art teachers in my district were doing K-12.  I found another artist whose work I really enjoy and the students respond to on the Art of Africa.  The painting (image from Pinterest below) is called "Crocodile and Elephant" and was created by Andry Kashivi, an artist from Southern Africa.

Source: theartofafrica.co.za via Katie on Pinterest

This lesson ended up taking three 40-minute class periods.

Day 1: Introduction.  View and discuss the artwork with lots of emphasis on description and breaking the painting down to elements.  After the students identified the animals, they learned the word silhouette (ok, some learned it) and identified the shapes in the background as organic.  I told them that they would be creating artwork inspired by Kashivi's paintings with brightly colored organic shapes in the background and the silhouette of Kalahari Desert animals on top.  After the first class, I realized that I would need to guide the students through drawing their organic shapes or they would never, ever finish painting. I asked them to draw two lines from side to side and one line from top to bottom that were a "medium amount of curvy".  I had to get kind of specific or some went crazy with lots of loops and I knew it would take too long to paint.  I did tell the students that their shapes did not have to look exactly like mine, they just needed to use the right kind of lines to get a good amount of shapes.  Most classes had enough time to begin painting at the end of the first class.

Day 2: Finish painting! I put trays of tempera paint in bright yellow, orange, magenta, and green at each table.  Students who painted fast added a second coat of paint.  We all really enjoyed the bright colors.

Day 3: I showed the students images of Kalahari Desert animals and put black and white copies at their tables.  The students were given a half sheet of black construction paper on which to draw their animals.  Originally I was going to have the students paint the silhouettes but they acted freaked out and said they would rather cut.  I'm undecided on if this was a good move or not.  In my demonstration I showed the students how to just draw the outline of the animals, not all the details on the body.  I spent a few minutes modeling cutting the shapes and showed them my tricks for tricky areas.  I also asked them to flip the animals over when they glued so that no pencil marks would show.  Some remembered, some didn't. In the last few minutes of work time, I showed the students how they could use the end of their paintbrushes to make dots for eyes with white and red paint.  You can see in the picture below that some went a little crazy with the dots!

The next picture is a comparison of 2nd grade cutting skills. The student on the left was really careful and didn't chop off any limbs. (I did show students who accidentally cut off legs how to glue both pieces on their paintings so that they touched "like puzzle pieces".) The student on the right... well, I'm not sure what kind of animal it was supposed to be.  Even though some students struggled with cutting, most were trying hard.  Some just cut out blobs of shapes and didn't cut in between legs, for example, until I asked them about it.  Then they acted confused!

I think if I were to teach this lesson again, it would be with older students.  These examples are probably the best results from the grade.  I think it was just a bit too tricky for most of my 2nd graders to translate the shape of animals, and not so familiar animals at that, into silhouettes.  I think the silhouettes would have been easier to see if they were painted instead of cut out but then the drawing would have been a problem.  But, we reviewed shapes, learned about some new animals, and had fun making some colorful artwork so in that way, it was a success. You can see the rest of the student artwork in our Artsonia gallery.

3rd Grade Kalahari Animal Prints

Africa is a focus for my district's K-12 Art team this year to coincide with our high school's Cultural Heritage Week.  Every student is learning about Africa and creating an African-inspired artwork.  3rd grade students were inspired by the artwork of Katunga Carimbwe, whose prints I discovered here while searching for Art from Southern Africa.  The Art of Africa website specializes in Arts and Crafts of San/Bushmen people.  There is a lot of cool artwork there so I encourage you to check it out!  (An upcoming post will show you a 2nd grade project inspired by another artist found on that website.) 

Source: theartofafrica.co.za via Katie on Pinterest

I really enjoyed Carimbwe's printmaking and thought the students would respond well to the stylized animal imagery.  The assignment was to draw an animal from the Kalahari Desert (which I've read is not a "true" desert due to the amount of precipitation but let me get back to the point,) and turn it into a print.  I ordered some 4x6 inch plates made out of the same kind of foam as meat trays... and I can't remember what it's called!  

In the first class, I showed the students images of Carimbwe's artwork and asked them if they could identify a theme (animals/nature).  I read them part of the artist's biography and showed them where Southern Africa is on a world map.  Next, I showed them where the Kalahar Desert is. I wanted to avoid lumping everything into "African" so my strategy was to pick a specific place and research animals that live there.  I printed reference photos for several of the animals from that habitat and put them in folders at each table for easy access.* I gave a quick introduction to printmaking and passed out some cheap drawing paper cut to 4x6 inches to match the plate size.  The students had the rest of the class to choose and draw a Kalahari Desert animal.  I did point out how the artist used patterns and borders in his prints and encouraged the students to do the same.

*And now I remember why I don't use folders at the tables very often.  It drives me BATTY when the students don't put the papers back in the folders neatly, which is the case about 98.3% of the time.  If the papers are just thrown in there they get all bent and torn which defeats the purpose of the folder!

In the second class, the students placed their drawings on top of the foam plates and traced with pencil. If you use this method, it is really important to have students trace back over their lines on the plate after removing the drawings to make the lines deep enough.  By the time they finished that step, there wasn't a ton of class time left!  I demonstrated inking a plate and pulling a print and the students had time to make one print.  It was at this point in my first class that I realized I was going to have to add one more class period.  I haven't been able to order supplies yet (and actually haven't gotten an answer to what my budget's going to be yet) so I had to use black tempera paint instead of printing ink.  It worked ok, but printing ink definitely works better.

In the third class, I had the students use watercolors to hand-color their prints from day 2 while I worked with individuals.  I had one printmaking station set up and called one student at a time over to me.  I gave them a private demo and helped them get one nice black and white print.  Even though I hadn't planned on 3 class periods, it was cool to see the original drawing, a more traditional black and white print, and a very colorful print!

  

I had to narrow down my 105(ish) students' work to the top 4 that will be displayed in an Art show at the high school and it was HARD!  I can't wait to see what the students write for their artist statements!