6th Grade Pop Art Project # 3

ONOMATOPOEIA... say what?!?  We have gotten to the third and final pop art project in 6th grade. For this project we focused on the onomatopoeia aspect of pop art. Students learn about it in their 6th grade English classes, so I try to reiterate that information in here. 

We begin by talking about the artist Roy Lichtenstein. 

Then we talk about what Onomatopoeia is, I always show them a few silly videos about it:

Then they begin a torn paper newspaper collage. I tell them they only want black and white print, no pictures and no color. 

Once that is complete, they choose a word to illustrate. we talk about different fonts that will make an impact with their word. 

They draw it in bubble/block letters and color using one color and outline using a second color. 

• They cut out their word and glue it to their newspaper collage. 
• They cut their collage edges in an interesting way and glue it to colored paper

• They cut the colored paper in the same way they cut their collage, leaving a line of color going around their collage.

• They glue their paper down one more time on a different color of paper. 

• They use black paint and the eraser end of a pencil to create ben-day dots on the last piece of colored paper. 

7th Grade Watercolor Silhouettes

7th Grade... my nemesis. I love them, I really do, but they are not interested in anything but themselves and their friends. Art? Whats that? I do not exist in their realm of knowledge! 

Seriously though, they are like the spoiled middle child.. they are never happy no matter how much time and energy I put into their projects, its never good enough. 

I have to look for projects that do not take a lot of time or they lose interest. This project is perfect for them, it takes place over 3 days- one for learning and experimenting, one for painting with watercolor and one for painting with tempera.

All in all they create two paintings, one objective and one non-objective. 

 

Day one: Material distribution and beginning stages: dividing their paper for the 10 watercolor techniques I show them.
Each table gets a box with the necessary materials (they get their own water cup, paint brush and papertowel)

They are given their watercolor paper and a roll of masking tape, and they watch this video I made:

After they separate their paper, they watch another video I made and practice the techniques as they go along (I play one and pause to allow time for them to try it and so on) 

The outcome looks like this:

Day Two: they are instructed to complete two background paintings, one for the objective painting of the silhouette and the other for their non-objective painting. They must use at least two of the techniques they practiced. 

Day three: They choose a silhouette and for most I print it and they trace it onto their paper (remember my previous comment about them being the spoiled middle child..) they use black liquid tempera to paint their silhouette. While that is drying, they use the same black tempera paint to paint abstractly all over their second painting. Some are more creative than others, naturally.

Overall I was impressed with the outcome. I intend to display them by mounting them together onto a larger piece of paper. :)

6th Grade Pop Art Unit Project #2

The class began with a YouTube video about Andy Warhol

We looked at some of his artwork and talked about why it was art, and why some think it wasn’t. 

I took a picture of each student and they used overhead projector sheets to trace their facial features 

Once their face was traced, I photocopied it. They used a 12x18 piece of drawing paper and a light table  (which my maintenance man made for me!  Under the counter light from lowes, 2x4s,  plexi glass and VIOLA! )

Students used the light table to trace their face 4 times on the 12x18 paper. They then go over their pencil lines with sharpie, then they are ready to begin painting. 

Each student was instructed to use 3 colors for their faces, paying attention to overlapping lines which create new shapes. 

After they painted their faces, they were instructed to use a ruler to draw 5-10 lines through their background. They chose 5 or more of the shapes created by the lines to add simple sharpie designs. 

Students used 2 colors to paint their background which they did not use in their faces. 

The final results were better than I had hoped for! 

6th Grade Pop Art Unit Project # 1

6th Grade for me is hit and miss... with one class I hit everything, and with the others I only get to accomplish 3 projects. I have two different types of 6th grade classes, one is a semester, every day, 40 minutes. The other is 9 weeks, every other day, 40 minutes. So there is a HUGE difference in the types of projects and the volume of projects I can accomplish with each class.

My semester class is still in its toddler years, as it is only my second year having it. I am constantly on Pinterest looking up new projects. This year I decided to do Pop Art as a unit with three different projects, 3 different artists: Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Project # 1:

Students begin by viewing a powerpoint about pop art and the artist Keith Haring. They watch this short video about pop art which is embedded into my ppt. 

We talk about Keith Haring and view his artwork. 

After the students take notes, I put on this video while I pass out 3 pipe cleaners to each student.

We take our three pipe cleaners

and turn them into one of these:

we use the little pipe cleaner person to create different positions of the body and make 8 different gesture drawings

They then choose one gesture drawing and turn it into a 'bubble person' 

Students are given a 12x18 piece of drawing paper.

 They begin by creating a border around the edge of their paper (they trace the ruler around the edge) 

They then draw their 'bubble person' nice and big in the middle. 

We talk about contour lines and students create contour lines again and again around their person to fill the space inside their border. 

They are instructed to draw a simple pattern in the border and then they are ready to begin adding color. 

We use oil pastels to add color to their project. The figure is silhouetted in black and the remainder of the colors are completely up to the student. 

Project # 2 coming up next.....