Still Wild about Warhol!

Probably the last Warhol project for a while, second grade completed an assignment similar to one I did at the Frist this summer. I had the students cut out their own flowers out of tissue paper, and I helped them with squirting water on them to make a print from the bleeding tissue. The next class the students used a sharpie to outline and draw details on the flowers. Finally we used a green and a black oil pastel to create the grass around the flowers, similar to that in Warhol's flowers. Below is one of the many examples I showed the students, and the rest are the students work. Of course you can find more in our artsonia gallery!

Warhol Identity Cans

After taking a trip to the Frist this past month, 4th grade students have been diving into a variety of Warhol inspired lessons. This one I borrowed from another fabulous Metro art teacher here in Nashville, Ms. Tina Atkinson. In this lesson we discuss the concept of identity in relation to labels, specifically a Campbell's soup can. Labels at the grocery store help tell us what is inside the packages that we are buying. The first label we are given as babies is our gender, then our name. Students use their last name as the identity of the brand name, and their first name as the "flavor." Example: I am Motta soup, Rachel flavored. Here are the results, again check out our artsonia page for more examples...

 

A new year, A new LOOK!

So this year I am actually moving classrooms. Long story short, last year I was in a regular sized classroom, this year I'm in the room that is intended to be the art room. Last year it was under renovation from the Nashville May flooding. Anyway.... so there are these windows in my room that look out into the cafeteria. Going into the room I know that this will be a distraction to my students. Currently there is an exhibit at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts on Andy Warhol.... here is my solution to my windows!

Warhol Tissue Paper Flowers

Inspired by these Warhol prints...

 One of the projects I did for the Frist Center for the Visual Arts summer camp was a tissue paper print. In this instance I had pre-cut tissue paper flowers, had the students arrange the flowers on their white drawing paper and spray them using a water bottle. Once the papers were sprayed, the students pealed their flowers off of their papers, leaving the stain from the colored tissue. *** Make sure when doing this that your art tissue paper is the type that is bleeding.
Day 2 students go back into their artwork with a sharpie marker to draw details around their flowers. There are so many other things you could use to add grass and I do plan on altering this lesson some before bringing it into my classroom this fall, but I very much enjoyed the results! Also the students didn't much care for the outcomes of their works until the next day when they added the details- or at least I got that comment from one student that I remember... not every lesson is fabulous until it's finished!

Wigging Out Over Warhol!

So this summer I had the privilege of teaching at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in downtown Nashville. I had such a blast, especially since the most recent exhibition to come on display while I was teaching was Warhol Live. This gave me the opportunity to explore some fun Warhol inspired art lessons. I think my favorite was the Warhol Portrait lesson that I did...

First I took a photograph of each student, then using photoshop, I turned those photos into black and white, elevated the contrast, and finally posterized. Then I printed out 3 photocopies of each kiddo, and one copy on a transparency. The students got to color these photos first using the crayola get fx markers, then using crayons with watercolor, and finally they got to chose their own media for their third. I know coloring isn't the most artistic thing to do with the students, but these were 5-7 year olds and it gave them the opportunity to see the different types of media and the marks those media can make. Lastly on the transparencies, the first week's group I had them use acrylic paint on the back of the transparency, so the image still faced the same direction as the rest of the photocopies. I wasn't all that impressed with the results, so the second group I tried having them use oil pastels, and I liked the results better.

Teaching this summer was a great opportunity for me to experiment and inspire me to create lessons for my kiddos this fall. Here are some of the results!