Eric Carle Style Christmas Art by Kids

I teach children with multiple complex needs who will probably never be able to draw complex images; but that doesn't mean they can't make art in the style of some of the greats. Eric Carle books are fun to read to these students because of the repetition makes it easy for them to make predictions. There's also fun features to their books with different size pages, holes for fingers to explore. They teach numbers, colors, animal names, time telling, days of the week, and of course the life cycle of a butterfly. But what I wanted to my students to learn most, was the process that Eric Carle used to create his pictures.

As a class painted big pieces of bulletin board paper, cut shapes out and collaged them to a piece of construction paper. 

Triangles, circles and rectangles could transform into a Christmas tree of ornaments.

Squares transformed into gifts with the help of colored masking tape turned ribbon and bows.

Once this concept played out, we used the concept of collage to make tactile wreathes from torn up scraps of tissue paper. Even students with no vision and little muscle control could tear, drop, and pat pieces into place.

Yarn drawings

 

My art students at the Academy for the Blind moved beyond Wiki Stix for tactile drawing when we used the quilling technique, but using yarn or string to create drawings is more permanent than Wiki Stix and more immediate than quilling individual coils to create an image.  Students were open in terms of subject matter. Some students chose to make something abstract with squiggles and spirals. The important thing is for them to realize that they can make images that can be appreciated as a visual piece of art for those with vision and as a tactile piece of art for those without. It's a great project to teach types of lines, and weight of line as they choose thick or thin yarn (or both).

And for my student who recently discovered that art class can be used to make mazes, he could make them a variety of ways. It was fun to hear him laughing each time he figured out how to make a dead end to trick one of his class mates.

The Paul Klee Way

Student painting of moon sitting atop of Klee-style sky-line

wonky towers of color

Paul Klee was a Swiss-German artist, who created 10,000 paintings, drawings, and etchings during his life. He was a member of the Blue Rider group of artists then became a Bauhaus teacher and his notes on color are still relevant. Klee fled Germany for Switzerland when Nazi pressure in the 1930's caused the Bauhaus to close. Germany had been a world hot spot for Modern Art, until Hitler, who hated it, caused thousands of of innovative paintings and drawings to be burned. Other pieces (including those by Paul Klee) were labeled and exhibited as "degenerate art." 

shaded colors frame tinted colors

Klee began life as a musician. As a child, he was able to play the violin at symphony level. His love for color caused him to become a painter, but I can see musicality in his visual art. The tones and rhythm, give a pleasurable experience to the viewer.  My respect for Klee grew when one of my favorite art professors showed us a Klee watercolor and called it "perfect," making the impossible, possible in my mind. His transfer drawings inspired much of my graduate school artwork, and it turns out, I wasn't the only one in my family with an appreciation for the artist. My sister gave her first son "Klee" as a middle name.

Bold lines created by student with visual impairment

My students were given the task of choosing one of several styles that Klee used. He made some paintings just of boxes of color. Others, were geometric shapes to create buildings and cities. He used subtle color shifts and bold lines for later work. And he did some figurative work with large, stylized features.  Some students had enough time to try out a couple styles and all the students seemed to enjoy channeling his ideas. Paul Klee may have died in 1940, but his art lives on!

The windows and doors in this building remind me of a pallet of make up or paint. The fact that the roof looks more like a spire is part of the charm.