Mini Biography Marilyn Levine was born in Alberta, Canada in 1935. She started out interested in Chemistry, but when she couldn’t find work as a chemist she taught college and took extra art classes while teaching. She then went back to college to study sculpture. She and her husband moved to California to attend college. Her work started showing up in shows soon after. Levine liked to combine stoneware (slip clay) with nylon fiber to create images that looked like leather instead of clay. She made leather looking jackets, baseball mitts, golf bags, briefcases, and handbags. Levine also taught ceramics in Utah and California. She passed away in 2005.
Tie In to Project Levine’s clay artworks tricked the eye by using texture techniques to make them look like leather. Everything has texture your hair is soft, the sidewalk is rough. To make art materials like clay or paint, which are usually smooth to look like hair or the sidewalk texture has to be created.
Project Make a tile of clay. Roll a ball out with a rolling pin and cut squares with a cookie cutter or by hand with a knife. Push and pinch with you fingers, press clay on clay, impress on the clay with tools to fill the tile with texture. Dry and fire.
Materials Ball of clay per person Rolling pin Square or Circle cookie cutter Clay tools Plastic knifes, forks, spoons, other various found objects
Variations Create an abstract 3D form with clay instead of rolling it out. Create textures all around the abstract form.
Follow up After fired close your eyes and rub your fingers lightly over the tiles. See if they can find a smooth spot, a rough spot, a sharp spot, a soft spot, etc.
Jackson Pollock was born in Wyoming on January 28, 1912.He was the youngest of 5 boys.Jackson had a bad temper and was kicked out of several schools.During his childhood his family moved to Arizona and California where his father worked as a land surveyor.In 1930 Pollock joined his brother Charles in New York City to study art with Thomas Hart Benton (another famous painter).Even though Pollock didn’t copy the subject matter of Benton, he did like the wavy liquidness of the lines he used.(See Martha’s Vineyard by Benton).
Pollock style of painting became known as abstract expressionism, which means emotion is shown through an idea.There is nothing in the painting that was supposed to look like anything.He painted lines and color to show emotion only.Pollock became famous for laying his canvases on the floor and dripping paint onto them.He used regular house paint instead of art paint.His brushes never touched the canvas; instead they dripped and drizzled paint all over the surface.These paintings were usually very big, similar to a bed sheet in size.He would also fling, splatter, and pour, but he said nothing was by accident, he controlled everywhere the paint went by how his body moved while putting it on the canvas.
Pollock was married to another artist Lee Krasner, who also did abstract expressionism.She helped him achieve his fame by helping set up shows.Pollock was patronized by Peggy Guggenheim.He died when he was 44 years old in a drunk driving accident.He had been in treatment for alcoholism for many years.
Tie In to Project
Pollock used dark colors to show emotion when he was sad and brighter colors in more happy times.Choose 3-5 shades of color for your painting.
Project
Create an 8x10 drip painting.
Find an area where painting can dry on the floor for 24 hours.Cover the floor with newspaper, place 8x10 sheets of paper on the floor.Let the students choose 3-5 different craft tubes of left over acrylic paint (or fill with non-toxic house paint).With clothes protected with long smocks, gently squeeze the tubes to release paint.Try doing straight lines, dots, and circular motions.Do not try to draw anything with the drips.Try different effects from being close the paper and far away.Layer the colors and use some of the layers that were on the bottom again.When finished let it dry.Don’t touch the paper until it is finished drying.
Materials
Newspaper
Paper
Tubes of craft acrylic paint
Variations
Do as a large group project on an old bed sheet or canvas.Start in the center and build your way out.
Follow up
See what emotions are conveyed through color and layers.
Mini Biography Andy Warhol was born August 6, 1928 in Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of four children. His parents were immigrants from Slovakia. His dad worked in a coalmine until he died in an accident when Warhol was 13. Warhol was very sick as a child and spent a lot of time in bed drawing and collecting pictures of movie stars. He went to college for art and then got a job in New York City illustrating (creating images to tell a story) for magazines, advertising companies, and album covers. He created the famous banana on the Velvet Underground album. In the 1960s Warhol started making painting of everyday images you saw everywhere in popular culture. This type of artwork is called “Pop Art” (because of POPular images). He created images of people in the news at that time such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. He also made images of products like Campbell’s Soup Cans and Coca-Cola Bottles. He made his work in a warehouse he called “The Factory” which was often visited by other artists, musicians, and celebrities. In 1968, one of members of “The Factory” shot Warhol. He survived after major surgery. He did a lot of silk screen during this time which is the print making process where you can make several images of the exact same thing through a screen. Lots of t-shirts are made this way. Warhol also liked to make art movies. Warhol was private about his faith, but we know that he went to Catholic Church almost everyday and helped in the soup kitchen often. He was also very secret about his relationships. He died in 1987 after gallbladder surgery.
Tie In to Project Warhol was very good at drawing images he saw. This is called still life drawing. Soup cans were favorite subject matters of his. To draw a soup can angled he had to draw what is called ellipses. The top of a can is a circle but when you see at it at an angle it becomes an ellipses (longer one direction than another) this shows depth.
Demonstration Look at the top of a soup can. Draw the circle on the board. Then look at the bottom and draw the circle a little below that circle. Look at the front and draw the rectangle between them. This looks more like “cubist” version of a soup can. Now draw the soup can as described in the project.
Project Draw a still life of a soup can.
Easy- Give each student a cut out of an oval. Have them trace the oval. Then trace the oval again about 6 inches lower. Either erase or do not draw the upper part of the oval on the bottom. With a ruler connect the sides of the oval to form a can. Decorate as you wish.
Medium- Measuring and draw x2 bigger. Have the students look at soup can and measure the width. Approx 3 inches. Multiply x2. Have them measure 6 inches across and lightly draw lines for the side of the can 6 inches apart. On the top draw an oval that touches the 6 inch sides. Measure the height of the oval. Make the same oval on the bottom, erasing the top part or not drawing it. Draw the can’s designs using shapes but no letters or do a fantasy soup.
Hard- If students have already been taught how to use a pencil to measure by sight have them each draw a can from life. Lightly sketch ellipses all the way down the can in order to help the can’s design look like they are wrapping around the can, rather than flat. Use shadow and highlight if time allows.
Materials Soup cans or Cutout Ellipses Paper Pencil Ruler
Variations This is a great project to do on the computer with a program such as InDesign. Follow a variation of the medium level instructions. Use copy and paste for ellipses.
Hannah Hoch was born November 1, 1889 in Germany.She went to the College of Arts and Crafts in Berlin Germany and studies graphic arts (art used for advertising, etc).She took one year off during WWI she left school to work for the Red Cross.After college she worked for printing companies making dress and embroidery patterns.
Hoch became friends and later dated the artist Raoul Hausmann.The couple used a technique that cubists (like Picasso) created called collage.This involved gluing images onto paper.Influenced by her work with women’s magazines, Hoch used the technique further and created images full of cutouts.This became known as photomontage.
Hoch style of artwork fit into the art movement called Dada, but she was not accepted in the group because she was a woman.Women were ignored as artists during this time.Therefore her work showed a lot of women and how people see them.She used a lot of gears and light bulbs to show that women were seen as machines too cook and clean.
Hoch made work until her death in 1978.
Tie In to Project
Hannah Hoch photomontages often looked like some things were closer and some things were far away.This is called depth.She was able to show depth by overlapping images, using large and small shapes, and by placing them low or high on a page.
Demonstration
Take two cut out shapes that are exactly the same.Tape them on the board.Overlap one over the other.Ask the class which one is closer.(The one in front).Put one shape to the right and above.Ask the class which one looks closer.(The lower should be).Ask the class which one looks bigger.(The higher one should).Tell the class as things get farther away they look smaller.Take a smaller version of the same shape and place it where the higher one is.Ask the class which one looks bigger now.(The lower should, or they may look the same size).
Project
Create a photomontage using depth by cutting similar images out of magazines (all cars or people or dogs, etc).Arrange and glue them on a page using overlapping, placement, and size to create depth in a scene.
Easy- Minimum of 3 images
Medium- Minimum of 5 images
Hard- Minimum of 7 images
Have the students show you their image before they start gluing.Always glue from the ones that look farther away first.
Tips: Clipping from magazines can always be time consuming because they are distracting.Here are some ideas to cut down on time.
Each person gets a magazine with a label on it.Ex. Car and Driver Magazine says “Car” or “Tire.”Students must find 5 images of the label to use.
In the directions have students rip out 10 pages with the same item and pick from those.
Have whole pages already torn out and grouped, students choose, trim, and arrange.
Materials
Paper to glue on
Old Magazines
Scissors
Glue
Variations
Instead of gluing on white paper, have them glue on construction paper or magazine images of scenery like yard, mountains, etc.
Have the students draw a scene after the page is dry.(Road, pet store, park)
Use a large piece of poster board and have the students create a scene together.
Maria Martinez was born in 1881 in New Mexico in a Native American Pueblo community.Her aunt taught her the ancient tradition of making pottery and she continued to make it even though it wasn’t needed as much because people were starting to use tin and porcelain.
Martinez collected clay from special places in the mountain that the Native American’s considered sacred.She mixed the clay with water and volcanic ash.She made pots by pinching, coiling, and smoothing them.She would fire or cook them in a fire pit so they would become hard. She collected a lot of old pots as inspiration.
Martinez is most famous for the pots she worked on with her husband and son which were black on black.Designs could be seen because some areas were glossy and others flat.
Martinez became very famous for her work and was invited to the White House where we met the President.She also traveled around demonstrating how to make pots so the skill would not go extinct.
Tie In to Project
Martinez’s pots were started out a lot like bowls and then started to close up.She did not use a pottery wheel like many people do today.
Project
Create a pinch pot. Begin with a ball of clay.Push your thumb into the center.Then pinch up the walls. Turn the piece as you pinch.This will help you to keep an even thickness in the walls of the piece. Gently pat the bottom on a flat surface to create a flat spot on the bottom of the piece. Initial the bottom, dry, fire in a kiln (if available).
Materials
Ball of clay
Variations
Use a letter stamps to put a name on the bottom.
Join a number of pots together with scoring and blending.
Decorate the pots with a handle, stamps tools, lid etc.
Glaze after being fired.
(A photo of pinch pots made by me will come later. The current one is borrowed from Terra studios.)
Mini Biography Georgia O’Keeffe was born November 15, 1887 in Wisconsin. Her parents were dairy farmers and had seven children. O’Keeffe’s mother put all her girls in art classes and when Georgia showed skill they let her go to art school. Georgia went to college at the School of the Art institute of Chicago. Here she won a contest for still life painting. Her prize was to see an art show at Lake George, New York. The place she visited was owned by Alfred Stieglitz, the man she would later marry. After college O’Keeffe was an elementary art teacher. She also taught at Texas A&M College. She continued to make her own artwork and take art classes. In 1916 a friend of hers showed Steiglitz drawings by O’Keeffe. He liked them so much that he put up a show of her work without telling her. O’Keeffe was very mad that her work was on display without her knowing. She went to the gallery to ask for them back, but ended up letting them stay and moving to New York. She later fell in love with Steiglitz and they were married. Steiglitz was a photographer and he often took pictures of O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe like to paint the landscapes around her. In New York she painted skyscrapers, at Lake George she painted the lake. When she visited New Mexico she painted the desert. She liked New York so much she moved there. O’Keeffe became the most famous painter in the United States. Her work sold for lots of money. She was the first woman to have an art show in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She was very famous for flowers and bones she painted very close up. She used oil paint and watercolors. When she was in her 80s she lost a lot of her vision. When she couldn’t paint anymore she decided to make pottery, which can be made without seeing.
Tie In to Project Georgia O’Keeffe loved using a magnifying glass to look inside flowers and paint them very big. It is easy to draw something smaller than it is, but drawing something big is harder. Good examples are “Black Iris” or “Red Canna.” There is no background in the paintings, only foreground. It looks like you are inside the flower.
Demonstration Tape a copy of “Black Iris” and your own drawings of an up close- cropped image on the board. Have the student’s guess what the image is. Draw on the board around the drawing what the image would look like as a whole.
Project Cut a piece of paper in half and tape it to a larger sheet of paper. Draw a flower or other interesting object to fill the entire space of the larger sheet of paper. You may have to demonstrate drawing to fill the space, emphasizing that the petals should touch the edge of the paper. If time allows color or paint the object. Do not leave any white space blank. Remove the smaller piece of paper. This smaller piece should be a close up view of the center of the object drawn.
Tip: Tape on the back to avoid missing color spots or use watercolor tape and make a border.
Materials Paper- 8x10 and 8x5 for each student. (Or scissors and have them cut and share) Pencil Crayons, Paint, or Markers
Variations You can cut the paper smaller than 1/2 a sheet to fill the space more easily.
Instead of drawing the subject matter in class, photocopy a drawing of an image and give it to students. Have them place a viewfinder on the drawing to find an interesting close up. Cut this out and paint it. Or re-draw what is in the viewfinder at a larger scale.
Pablo Picasso was born October 25 in 1881 in Spain.His father was a painter, art teacher and a curator (someone who picks out the artwork) for a museum.Picasso liked art as a child and his mother says his first word was “pencil” because he liked to draw.Picasso could draw so realistically that his father thought his son was better than him at 7 years old.When Picasso was 13 he got into an art school by passing a test that others take weeks to pass.
When Picasso was 16 he decided to go away and live by himself.He was very poor and had to burn some of his artwork just to keep warm.He started an art magazine with a friend in 1901.Three years later Gertrude Stein, a wealth New Yorker started collecting his art and became his patron (someone who helps make famous).She introduced him to other famous artists like Matisse.
Picasso married a ballerina who he met while designing the set for the ballet she was in.They had one son.They separated and Picasso married again.He had three other children with different women.
During WWII Picasso was working in Paris when the Nazi’s took over.They controlled what you could and could not paint so Picasso worked in his studio but did not show anyone his work until the Nazi’s left in 1944.
Pablo Picasso switched from painting realistically to something he and a friend called Cubism.A cubist painting is one where the subject that is being painted, such as a guitar or a flower arrangement or a friend is not painted to look real but is shown from different view point.In the end the painting looks like something broken and put back together in the wrong order.A good example is “Woman with a Blue Hat.”This type of painting had never been seen before and made Picasso famous.
Tie In to Project
Picasso also liked to paint in monochrome, which means a wide range of one color.Many of his cubist paintings are shades of brown.Before he started cubist painting he painted for a long time using only red.He called this the rose period.He also painted mostly in blue and called this the blue period.A good example of this is “The Old Guitarist.”
Demonstration
In monochromatic paintings you see the same shades of the same color.You can make many shades using just three colors, white, black, and the base color you want to show the most.On a straight paint pallet put the base color in the middle, add a little black going one direction and a little more the further you go.In the other direction add a little white and a little more the further you go out.You should have at least 5 shades of the same color.You may paint a bookmark size strip of paper to show these shades or just observe the paint palette.
Tip: Make sure you always wash your brush or use different brushes for each shade in order to not mix.
Project
Using a minimum of 5 shade of the same color paint a pre-made scene.
Start by doing the shadows in the darkest tone, then work your way up to the lightest.
Materials
Paint pallet with at least five mixing spots
White Paint
Black Paint
Other colors of paint, each student chooses only one
1-5 brushes per person
Water cup with water
Cloth to wipe brushes out
Paper with an image to paint
Easy: Rainbow, A box on the floor (three sides, floor, wall), anything with 5 areas to paint
Medium: Ball, Cone, Box, anything simple with shadows and highlights
Hard: Draped Material, Figures, anything with shadows, highlights, and details
Variations
The 8x10 image can be an image you photocopy, different pages ripped out of a coloring book, or a drawing the students had made earlier.
Follow up
What emotions do colors show?Blue- sad, Red- Angry
What was hard about painting this way?What was easy?
Vincent van Gogh was born March 30, 1853 in the Netherlands.He had two brothers and three sisters.He was best friends with his brother Theo. Van Gogh’s dad was a pastor and he had many uncles who were art dealers (people who buy and sell art).Vincent van Gogh learned art in school.After school was over he worked for the church as a missionary and he worked as an art dealer.During this time drew the things around him as a way to journal and keep memories of where he had been and what he saw.
Van Gogh was a very strong-willed person who got into fights with people and did crazy things when upset.He had a lot of different girlfriends, many who he proposed marriage to, but they refused.He was sick often due to his bad habits (drinking, smoking, prostitutes).
Van Gogh became friends with other artists while living in France.Many of the friends became famous after their group shows.Their styles of painting were similar although each kept their own style.
Van Gogh grew mentally ill and threatened his painter friend, Gauguin, with a razor blade.No one knows for sure what happened next but he ran to a brothel with a bit of his own earlobe and gave it to a prostitute.In July of 1890 he shot himself in the chest, but did not die until three days later after not seeking medical attention.
Van Gogh will be remembered for his self-portraits as well as the scenes the show what was around him such as his bedroom, the night sky, and sunflowers.
Tie in to Project
Van Gogh’s drawing and painting style stood out among the others because of his use of line.If you look at “Starry, Starry Night” or “Grove of Cypresses” you can see that most of the lines are curly.Different types of lines bring personality to a work.
Example on Board:
Draw a stick figure with straight lines and then a circle for the head.Now draw a stick figure using a jagged line or a dotted line.Ask the class what kind of emotions the stick figures convey?
Project
Choose a still life object and draw it four times.One with straight line then each time use a different type of line.
Be creative on the type of line you use.
Materials
Pencil and Paper
Still Life Object
EASY: ball, book, cup, clock
MEDIUM: branch, chair, lamp, fruit
DIFFICULT: face, animal, landscape
Variations
Explore another medium such as india ink, marker, charcoal.
Use the same medium for each drawing.This will help stay focused on line.
Use the same color for each drawing.Colors also convey emotion and will distract.
If you would like to display one of these drawings do each drawing on a separate sheet of paper and mat.
Follow up
Look at each others four drawings.List the emotions conveyed.
Or provide a list of emotions like energetic, silly, etc and have them find the drawing that best fits. Give out an awards to the Scariest Drawing, the Angriest Drawing, etc.
Project
