Synthetic Cubism Art Project

Picasso and Braque were friends in Paris who had similar ideas about art in the early 1900's. The idea of showing multiple points of view of a still life at the same time somehow seemed more honest or interesting than just one perspective at a time. A cup may be a circle if you trace the bottom onto a piece of paper, or a rectangle if you trace it on it's side. Why not tell the whole store by showing both the rectangle and circle simultaneously?

Another thing the Picasso and Braque did was to introduce collage to their paintings. pieces of newspaper or table cloth along with parts of a guitar and cup may add up to equal the ambiance of a Parisian cafe with someone playing music while you take a sip and read the paper. This synthesis with collaged materials were what made for Synthetic Cubism.

It's hard enough for those of us with sight to understand how cubism used fragmented planes, but for my students with no vision, it was very confusing. They grasped the concept of collaged materials very quickly, however. Wall paper of various textures, and thick to thin cardboard pieces helped students differentiate between and arrange shapes.

 

Students were asked to leave little clues for the viewer: a hint of a fruit bowl, parts of a table, some wood grain or table cloth pattern.

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As an art movement, Cubism didn't last very long, just six years, ending with Braque leaving Paris tin 1914 to go fight in World War I, but the little clues about what was happening in the lives of the artists are still there for us to see.

Art Students and Popsicle Sticks

There are so many things you can do with popsicle sticks and the more options you give your students the better. Some of my students made boxes out of them, while others painted them before arranging them and gluing them to painted cardboard, but one of the favorite projects from popstick week was a class quilt. Each student was given a 4.5" X 4.5" square of chipboard. They were to pick out 12 sticks. It helps to limit the color choices between 2 or 3 to make patterns. This was a chance to touch on the vocabulary of color relationships and help them feel good about their choices., "Oh, you  are using secondary colors.", "Yellow and purple are opposite on the color wheel. They are complimentary colors." or "All of your colors are warm."  Some students drew lines, dots or zigzags on individual sticks with marker before gluing them down one at a time, while others glued them into place before adding a simple image or circles form dot makers. Since my students are all blind or visually impaired it is nice that they can feel the sticks and the verticle-horizontal pattern of the squares. Those with some vision, could help me arrange them making sure that the blues were spread evenly, and there were at least two squares with yellow in each row. It's a great way to touch on unity, variety, horizontal, vertical, color schemes, and collage, while letting children make their own choices.

 

Harlem Renaissance Lesson

The Great Migration of African Americans to the northern cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, and New York happened from about 1918 to the early 1930s. These were the days of Jim Crow laws. These were also the roaring 20's when Harlem became a hot spot for some of the best art, literature and music in the world. Can you imagine a community of talents such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, Langston Hughes, Aaron Douglas, Lois Mailou Day, and Romare Bearden? When I look back on the creative movements in history, I am impressed at the power of friendships between creative people. It is not the hermit who becomes part of a major art movement, but groups of people who inspire each other, learn from each other and bounce ideas off one another.

 My students each picked a Harlem Renaissance artist to study and write about. Then they created an image using the style and medium of their artist.   All of my 5th period students happened to choose Romare Bearden as their artist. He was a philosopher, art historian, author, painter, collage artist and jazz musician: a true Renaissance man! The great problem he set out to solve was how to tell the story of his people from the rural south to the urban north, and still adhere to the formal issues of modern art. His work was wonky and relevant and had all the good stuff like symbolism, scale, and strong color relationships.  More than one time, while my students were gluing parts of magazine images onto a background, I found myself saying, "It's not weird enough, yet!"

I highly suggest putting on some big band jazz, cutting up old magazines, and making some funky, Bearden-inspired collages as a pick-up on a rainy day afternoon. It's good for the soul!

Monster Mash-up Mania

If you had told me 10 years ago that I'd end up teaching children with multiple complex needs how to design monsters, I wouldn't have believed you. Yet here I am, and  I'm loving it! A normal art teacher at a normal elementary school might model how to think through each part of "building" a monster before opening the gate to let students run wild with their imagination. They might make 20 arms, or eyes on elbows, or create fuzzy tentacles.  But I have a couple dozen art students who aren't able to function on that level. All of them are legally blind, some are in wheel chairs, and many of them are non-verbal.

Inviting participation is a matter of giving them choices, often only two choices.  So in our make-a-monster assignment I walk these students through each step by asking questions.

"Do you want your monster to be on a yellow or blue piece of paper?"
"Do you want your monster to be tall or short?" (vertical or horizontal paper orientation)
"Do you want the body to be soft or rough?" (felt or upholstery fabric or burlap)
"Do you want the body to be purple or green?"
"Do you want the body to be a circle or a square?"
Questions continue about head, hair, arms, legs, feet, eyes, mouth, etc. until the entire figure is completed.

When I have a student with echoalia (who always repeats the second choice back to me), I ask the question a couple times changing the order.  For a nonverbal child with no sight, I move their hand from one option to the other, and then have them touch their choice. One of my students carries a communication device with preprogramed buttons, so I ask only yes or no questions.  "We have ribbons and tape. Do you want to use ribbons for legs?" If she pushes the "no" audio button, then I ask, "Do you want to use tape for legs?"

Every student is expected to help me squeeze the glue, position and pat down every collage piece. The most important thing to me is that each student takes ownership in the finished piece and does as much work as they can possibly do on their own. Progress is very slow, but when I see one of these students use a pair of scissors, or learn the word, "collage" I feel like I'm Anne Sullivan, living a scene from "The Miracle Worker"!