The Art Cart

Lesson 20: Dali Surrealist Landscape

The students learned about the Surrealist movement and the work of Henry Magritte and Salvador Dali. We watched an interesting animated movie called "Destino" which was a collaboration between Dali and Disney, but wasn't released until 2003 when Disney artists compiled all the sketches and ideas and turned it into a film. For the project, I printed out calendar landscapes (mostly beach scenes) in full color and the students were able to add their own "surrealist" elements, like melting Dali clocks and strange mountain forms.

Lesson 19: Dada Trash Collage

For this lesson, the students first learned about the Dada art movement and the importance of making silly, nonsensical art that doesn't mean anything. We first made nonsense word poems by having each student pick out a word or phrase from a bag of magazine clippings, then students made their own trash collages based on the work of Kurt Schwitters using vintage newspaper, dress pattern paper, and other random assortments of paper. 

Lesson 18: Picasso Heads

Students learned about the Cubist movement and they used printed out Picasso-style facial features to create funky faces. They glued their facial features onto a round head shape. I enjoy collage projects because they aren't as messy as painting and even though you are basically using the same materials, every project turns out different!

Lesson 17: Matisse Paper Cut-outs

Students learned about the Expressionism movement and we created paper cut-out collages based on the work of Henry Matisse. I had pre-cut shapes that were based on Matisse's shapes and students glued them down in their own patterns. Learning about Matisse was interesting because his style of art changed when he could no longer walk (he went from painting to paper-cut outs) and it was nice to learn that physical problems didnt limit his creativity.

Lesson 16: Klimt Trees

We learned about Art Nouveau in Paris and the many different artists during that period, with a special focus on Gustav Klimt. Each student used a tree template, which they decorated with scraps of patterned paper, construction paper, and gold paint pens on black cardstock paper (I found that construction paper is too flimsy to use as the background for anything- and cardstock is not that expensive if you know where to look) We then "curled" the branches using crayons. 

Lesson 15: Collaborative "Starry Night"

This lesson took me a lot of time beforehand (and after), but the end result was amazing! We learned about Post-Impressionist painters and we focused on Vincent Van Gogh. I first created a giant outline drawing of "Starry Night" and each student was given a numbered square of dark blue construction paper from the outline drawing. The students used oil pastels and a gold paint pen to design their squares. I put it all together (after some searching for missing numbers- where is #37!!!) at the end to form a class recreation of Starry Night! 

Lesson 14: Monet's Bridge

For our lesson on Impressionism we used watercolors to create a version of Monet's famous bridge painting. I first had the students that were able help me tape down a bridge shape using blue painter's tape. The students painted with watercolors and peeled the tape off after waiting a few minutes for the paint to dry. I would like to eventually create more tape-resist projects because the results are always amazing!

Lesson 13: Sunprint Paper "Photography"

For this lesson I talked a little about the history of photography and its influence on art. Students used Sunprint paper to create designs using the light from the sun. Since I only had a half hour for each class and the process takes a few minutes, I made this a group project, or experiment. The only problem was not every class experiment worked out because you really do need bright sunlight (indoor lights do NOT work!) and a couple classes were stuck with rainy days. I showed the students how to place stencils and even small objects to create a "negative" just like photography. I was asked to make a project that we could potentially use for the school Holiday card, so I chose to use stencils that looked like snowflakes. When I had bright sun, the paper changed almost instantly and the results were pretty cool!

Lesson 12: Baroque Fruit Bowls

Students learned about the Baroque period and the way artists used shading to create the illusion of light in their paintings. Each student created a fruit bowl on dark paper with construction paper, then they were able to use oil pastels to shade and highlight different areas of their fruit bowls. These turned out adorable, and I would love to see them in a series all framed together.

Lesson 11: Renaissance Rainbow Etchings

I really wanted an excuse to use scratch art paper, so I kind of stretched the connection to the Renaissance with this lesson. Students learned about the many different inventions and important discoveries during the Renaissance, including the invention of the printing press (this is where I tied in the use of the scratch paper, because it reminded me of the plates that they would etch and print from) Students were given stencils to trace designs, and other students created their own designs- including a student that filled his with beautifully drawn music notes!