James Rizzi inspired "Happy Houses"

A few weeks ago the 4th grade art students created 3-dimensional buildings from sheet of card stock. I demonstrated to my classes how you can fold the sheet in a way that produces a cuboid form. I was inspired by the educational blog "Her Dabbles."

We had been studying sculptural forms using paper and I wished to explore the idea of love and happiness in a sculpture lesson. The "Happy House" lesson was an appropriate transition.

We began by studying the work of New York Pop artist James Rizzi. I showed students examples of Rizzi's paintings, prints, and building designs. We talked about his personal style of work and use of motifs. A motif is a decorative design or pattern.  They identified his motifs and drew examples in their sketchbooks.

"A Life of a Block of Buildings",  2010

We then set to constructing our cuboid forms after we examined more deeply Rizzi's "Happy Houses" in Braunschweig, Germany. The students noticed how Rizzi incorporated his motifs in the buildings' exteriors and critiqued his artistic choices. Some students appreciated the style of his work while others found it didn't appeal to their aesthetics. I asked them did his work evoke "happiness"? Was he successful in his artistic aims?

The following class I asked the students to cover their buildings with their choice of Rizzi inspired motifs. I provided a handout with a variety of designs they could use or adapt. They chose from collage paper and markers to design their buildings. Their goal was to design each side in response to viewing his buildings.

As an extension, I tasked a couple of the 4th grade classes in producing a backdrop for a mural based of a James Rizzi's city painting. Since I don't have a lot of space for showcasing 3-D work I decided to install their buildings not entirely in the round, but more as a relief. I asked the students to study the painting and choose to create a building, vehicle, or people to be added to the mural's design.

I installed all of their work in the hall outside the art room. It turned out really fun an colorful. I had to be careful not to attach the buildings too far down so that they are not run into as students walk by in the hallway. So they sit just above head level.

I found that the students enjoyed the process of creating their own building. They were pleased to learn how easy it was create a 3-D form out of a flat sheet of card stock. I also learned how much my students enjoy working 3-dimensionally. Since not all students have a practiced drawing hand yet it is always good to offer lessons for students to simply build. They love it and were naturals. It seems this installation has brought much happiness to the school community. We have been complimented and thanked for bringing booming colors to our halls as our grey Pacific Northwest skies remain so dark during February.

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Locks of Love inspired by Tacoma artist Diane Hansen

I had recently participated in an online art education conference through the AOE site and was really inspired by one of the presenters, Don Masse of Shine Brite Zamorano. His presentation centered around teaching students about the art of living artists. I admit, I use a TON of art history in my classroom because not only do I have an art history degree but I was trained to include it in my curriculum. However, Don's message was clear. If I included living artists in my curriculum, the students could have a real connection with that person whether it is seeing their work in person,  have a correspondence, or actually meet them. I knew I had to do it.

I had been rolling out a unit on Love at the beginning of February and chose a single 3rd grade class that I see twice a week. They are so lucky to get art twice because I go into the lessons more deeply and tend to design more labor intensive projects that take time since their schedule allows for it.

I began by introducing them to the artist Diane Hansen of Tacoma, Washington. Tacoma is just 18 miles North of our school and a lot of my students have been there. I showed them her public artwork "Lock on Tacoma". She created an installation beneath a pedestrian bridge of large metal heart shaped locks with accompanying keys.  I explained that Diane's inspiration for this work seemed to have come from the Paris 'Love Locks' movement and the natural affinity Tacomans have for their city.  Beneath her heart locks are pillars that hold the piece up. These pillars are wrapped with metal fencing that is meant to have padlocks attached to it. The public is invited to interact and add to her installation.

The students looked closely at her art as well as the Pont des Arts bridge (since been dismantled) and discussed it's meaning as well as reasons why someone would attach a lock in order to remember a time and/or place.

Pont des Arts, Paris, France

After this discussion we designed our heart shape forms out of tagboard and tape. I had pre-cut the strips used for folding a heart shape but encouraged them to solve the problem of producing the top and bottom heart pieces. They discovered that you had to carefully trace the outline of their heart shape strip and to cut and tape it.

The next day they used art paste and paper mached their forms. The following class they applied tempera paints and I hot glued a chenille stick that had been bent to form the shackle.

The result is wonderful! They are fun, colorful, and the kids loved the process of creating them. If I had the means to purchase a lot of silver puffy paint I believe it would have made these locks look more similar to Diane's. I would have asked them to apply the puffy paint in the decorative manner seen in the Tacoma Lock. Maybe next time!

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Celebrations in Visual Culture: Symbols of the Heart & Lunar New Year

February brings us lots of opportunity to explore the art of celebrations and our visual culture. The celebration of Valentine's Day isn't something I directly design lesson around, however, the idea of "Love" and the heart shape is something that I find can guide our art making. Any student, kindergarten through fifth grade can relate to the notion of "love".

We began our discussions around what we thought "love" is, how do we feel it? What are the things in life we love and how do we show it? I also asked them why the heart shape is representative of love. I had a third grade student even remark that he felt that love should be represented by the brain since that is where the idea of love begins. How interesting!

In kindergarten, we explored how to draw and cut symmetrical hearts with paper, draw/paint hearts, form hearts with clay, and fold paper into sculptural hearts.

In first grade, we learned about color theory with warm and cool colors to create mixed media collages.

In 2nd grade, we created textured heart compositions inspired by the artist Jim Dine. Thank you Painted Paper for the inspiration.

In 3rd grade we composed segmented hearts that expressed all the individual things we loved and are currently constructing a "heart shaped lock" inspired by local artist Diane Hansen. A detailed post about this project is coming soon!

In 4th we studied James Rizzi's "Happy Houses", in creating 3-D buildings using motifs such as hearts. I plan to create a separate post to showcase this art project in detail.

Now....onto Lunar New Year!

The Chinese New Year began on Monday February 8th this year. It is the "Year of the Monkey".

I truly enjoyed introducing North Star students to the visual culture of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Across all grade levels, I presented basic information about the celebration and its significance to our region in the Pacific Northwest. I showed them lots of examples of visual artifacts related to the event such as calligraphy, lanterns, fans, scrolls, zodiac, and the popular dragon symbol.

Kindergarten produced a guided drawing of a dragon and practiced their brush techniques with watercolor.

1st graders produced Chinese paper lanterns inspired by the festival.

2nd grade created paper hand puppets inspired by the Dragon parade.

3rd & 4th grade studied Chinese characters with ink calligraphy in creating their scrolls.

5th graders are working on another paper mache project related to the the Lunar New Year which will also be featured in it's own detailed post. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment below!

Over and Under the Snow

The 2nd grade completed these projects last month but I've been busy posting about other grade levels and only getting to this one now. So it goes when you teach 6 levels of art!

We began this lesson by reading the book "Over and Under the Snow", by Kate Messner. I really appreciate the beautiful illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal. The book lends itself well to teaching about space (compositionally) & science (animals & their habitats). The idea to create collage stemmed from a Deep Space Sparkle lesson by the phenomenal Patty!

After reading the book, I asked the class to think about what kind of wintery world they would create inspired by the book. They then prepared a painted paper to collage their composition (I sure love this method of art-making!). They divided up a piece of 12x18" drawing paper and painted the 5 areas with the color scheme we saw in the book (blue, black, red orange, brown, and white). 

The next class the students were tasked with creating a spatial composition with their painted papers. I demonstrated how to draw on the backside of their painted papers so to not have pencil lines all over their paper. They then cut out their drawings and made their collage compositions.

As an extension to this project, we made pop-ups! I was inspired, again, by the incredible Nic Hahn at Mini Matisse. She has been creating "Pop Up Pets" with her art classes.  In the back of the book, the writer included an index of all the animals in her book with accompanying facts about their winter habits and habitats, so I copied and printed them out for each table so each student could choose an animal for their pop-up.

They created their pop-up base, drew/colored/cut their animal out, added a background, and included 3 facts about their animal.

I really like integrating science into art lessons. My students love learning about animals and their environment. I hope they use these techniques in their classrooms in the future when asked to present information in a report.


Thanks for reading!