Endangered Species Series Foam Printmaking with 6th Grade Art Students!
-What do you think the artist was trying to say in this work?
The cool thing about living in Rochester is that we actually have a set of Andy Warhol's Endangered Species Series here at the Mayo Clinic. They are free to view, however, they do not do field trips or tours. This was fun, since some of my kiddos said they had seen this artworks in real life.
After our discussion about Andy Warhol's work, I had students choose an animal to draw. I tiered the assignment so students of all abilities could feel a sense of accomplishment. The lower level students were allowed to trace an animal. The middle level students were allowed to draw from observation by looking at a picture of the animal. The higher level students were encouraged to draw the animal from memory or based on an idea. This allowed my gifted and talented students a little more freedom and independence, which I think they enjoyed. It also allowed my lower level students to feel like they could create an awesome work of art. I'm not a huge fan of tracing, but it has it's time and place in every art class.
Once they drew their animals, they had to show me their drawing in order to get their foam. They taped the paper to the foam and started tracing over their design. They went over their designs with a blunt pencil or mechanical pencil with no lead. Next, we started printing! After they printed 3 different prints, I had some students outline their lines with oil pastel to add an Andy Warhol look to their work. You can view the demo video I played for my students at the end of this post. View examples of my students work below.
My Draw/Paint I high school students did an awesome job on this project! Though I usually like students to have a more open-ended art assignment, this one seemed to work well for all students.
For this assignment, I introduced students to the work of Wayne Thiebaud (Tee-Bow). We discussed how he used colors in interesting ways and applied the paint thickly to the canvas like frosting. His work has a 3-dimensional quality that makes it addicting to look at! I then had students experiment with oil pastel and mixing colors of oil pastel using the 3 primary colors.
Finally, I had students choose a color copy of a Wayne Thiebaud work that they liked. The nice thing about Thiebaud's work is that it offers an enticing selection for students to choose from. My students had to draw the work based on the color copy with pencil first. Some students chose to draw using the grid method they had learned in the previous lesson.
Next, they used oil pastel to add color. I encouraged students to apply the oil pastel very thickly to recreate the 3-dimensional quality of Thiebaud's work. This project was a lot of fun, because it helped even below average students feel successful at art. This project took approximately 2 weeks (10 50-minute class times) for students to finish.
Halfway through the project I brought in cupcakes for all my students because they complained that Thiebaud's work made them hungry. What's better than making art and eating cupcakes!?