Theme: Music

Music was the last theme that my high school students worked on before spring break when EVERYTHING changed.

I don't think I know anyone who doesn't like music. Everyone can find a style they like. In addition to March being Youth Art Month, it is Music In Our Schools Month so it seemed like a good time to make connections between the arts.

Here is the slides presentation that I used to go over the big ideas:

The big questions for this unit were:

How can artists visually express music?

and

How can color convey feeling?

After the discussion, the students warmed up by using 10 minutes* to capture the feeling of a song in a nonobjective painting. The majority of students wanted to keep working so they spent the rest of the class period on the task. I let the students listen to the song of their choice using their personal device or headphones and their school computer.

Students had choice of media.

Eventually, students came up with a plan for a project inspired by music that they could complete in about 2 weeks.

This student painted on old records and then riveted them together to form a wall hanging.

The inspiration for this experimental painting came from the title of the sheet music. I have a couple of old sheet music books I rescued from being recycled.

This painting was inspired by Weezer's Island in the Sun

These two friends made paintings the complement each other.

This drawing was by our Italian exchange student who really loved to draw. I like how you can see where she erased on the left side.

Here are the Visual Arts Standards and Graphic Design Competencies we addressed through this unit:

Romare Bearden Inspired Artwork- 5th Grade

The only handprint turkey I've ever been excited over!

My 5th grade students made artwork inspired by Romare Bearden. I had thought about doing a project inspired by him since I started teaching but hadn't found just the right inspiration yet. I read that the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City was having an exhibition of his work, Romare Bearden stamps were being released, and his 100th birthday would have been last September so the timing seemed right.

Source: beardenfoundation.org via Katie on Pinterest

(Feel free to send me a letter with these stamps.)

To begin the project, I showed a PPT (from a website that apparently no longer exists). The students discussed some of the artwork and I pointed out how he assembled his images from different materials. I really emphasized that he used images to construct NEW pictures instead of just cutting and pasting whole images and that the scale did not have to be "correct." I also showed the following video because I liked how they compared improvisation and play between jazz and Art.

The assignment requirements were to create a mixed media work of Art about music. The students had to include something cut from newspaper or magazine (or both), something cut from construction paper, something hand drawn, and at least one instrument from the collage sheets I created. To make the collage sheets, I asked our music teacher to save catalogues for me. I went through and cut out tons of pictures of instruments then laid them out on the copy machine. I did not group the instruments by type (woodwinds, brass, percussion, etc.) though that might have made it easier for students to find specific instruments they were looking for. I put them together however they fit on the copier and enlarged to create different sizes.

These were organized at one point...

 I thought we could do this project in 2 class periods, and some were pretty much finished in that amount of time. However, I did add a 3rd class to the schedule to let more finish, and several students asked to come in during recess to work on their projects. I think that's a sign of a popular lesson- students giving up recess! In the 3rd class period, students used watercolors to fill in white space, and wrote an artist statement when they were done.

Yesenia312 says this about his/her art... I did my art to represent Romare Bearden art. I was inspired by his art. He is a great artist. I found out about his art by Mrs.Morris, she showed us his art on the internet and thats how I figured out, and why I did it.

This might be my YAM entry...

Grace3554 says this about his/her art...

I really liked the way this came out. Better than I imagined it! I didn't want to just paint everything, I wanted to make it colorful. Some things, as you can see, I made them so you have to think about. Like the girl playing the violin. That's her left hand. Thanks for reading this!

This student said her band was named "The Toasters". I didn't notice they were missing the 2nd "t" until last night.

I love this one. I wish he hadn't missed the last class so he could have finished.

I like the watercolors on this face.

"Music is Art" became a popular phrase to add to the projects.

Told ya so.

This student named his band and put thought into their environment.

Cole1264 says this about his/her art...

I made a jazz collage with pencil, paper, magazines, and paint. I learned that almost everyone can be artistic. I like my picture and think the best part are the players.

Questionable placement of the lady's hands but unintentional.

I like how the fingers were cut out and put over the sax.

Best Art Class Ever- 6th Grade Planets

Way back in October I was doing a music inspired lesson with 4th-6th grade. 6th Graders spend I think a whole 9-weeks studying astronomy and one of my favorite CD's is a performance of Gustav Holst's The Planets. So my music-science-art fusion Planets lesson was born. In the first class, I gave a super quick introduction to Abstract Expressionism, focusing mainly on Jackson Pollock, then went further back into Art History to introduce Wassily Kandinsky. I talked about how Kandinsky is credited with making the first purely abstract paintings and was really influenced by music. We had the same rhythm/harmony discussion as in my 4th grade Jazz Painting classes then I jumped right into the task for the day: create 4 abstract expressionistic paintings inspired by 4 of Holst's planets. The students were each given a piece of 12x18 inch white paper which they folded "hamburger" AND "hotdog" style to create 4 sections. I had primary and white colored tempera paint at each table and cups of diluted tempera paint available to the students. They had about 2-3 minutes to paint for each song. They painted with their brush trying to fill in the whole rectangle then used paint droppers to drip and splatter paint (ties in Pollock) on top.  I believe the 4 planets we listened to were Mars bringer of war, Venus bringer of peace, Jupiter bringer of jollity, and Uranus the magician.

I said in the title of this post that this was the best art class ever. I really mean that. I have never, EVER, had 6th grade students working so quietly. And they were LOVING it! Even with only a few minutes to paint each section, every student finished. I had to take a video to kind of prove it to myself because I could hardly believe how smoothly it was going.  If you watch the video, make sure you have the volume turned up so you can really get a feel for it.

After the first class I asked the students to let the extra dripped paint run off their papers into the trash can. I recommend that, otherwise your floor or counter will look like this under your drying rack.

I don't think I told the students what we would be doing with the paintings until we were done, mostly because I wanted them to fill the whole space. In the second class, the painted papers were cut apart and the students used their paintings to create a collage. I didn't really teach them anything about astronomy, but we did brainstorm some things they could include in their artwork- planets, rings, moons, stars, asteroid, etc. I gave the students compasses to use if they wanted but also demonstrated cutting a circle freehand.
TIP- Save the scraps of painted paper for students to trade for adding details or for students who missed the painting session.

I know we should let students figure things out for themselves but I did show them how to make a ring for a planet. The overlapping and cutting out negative space was really throwing most of them.

Students who had enough time used oil pastels to add details. I tried to get them to add value to their planets to make them look like forms instead of shapes but that translated to drawing circles around the edges.

 

My Judgment: Overall, I think we all enjoyed this project. I think I will try to come up with something to make the backgrounds more interesting. I didn't want them to be too complicated since there were lots of colors and patterns on the planets, but the solid black construction paper looks a little flat if they didn't have time to add oil pastels.