Warhol Style Gridwork

4th grade is studying the Pop Art movement and more specifically Andy Warhol.  

Pop art challenged traditions of fine art by including images from popular culture (News, advertising.)

1968 Warhol

Students learned how to draw using a grid; they first worked on a 1:1 grid, this means 1 inch on the image is equal to 1 inch on their new grid. After practicing a 1:1 grid, students moved onto a large grid.  Our size for our final grid is about 1:50.  They turned an example of Warhol's famous Tomato soup can (1 small sheet of paper) into 50 separate grid sheets creating one group project.

Students worked together to assemble the grid on the floor and fixing any mistakes along the way.  They used problem solving skills to correct any mistakes along the way.  Instead of everyone working separate, students formed groups of 5-7 students and that group was in charge of 10 sheets in the grid. 

After problem solving, they tried it again and the second time it was even better!

After this second practice session, students were ready for their final draft.  On watercolor paper, students drew the can again, after drawing they outlined their sections with crayons.  The crayon color helped students figure out which section they would be painting.

I could not be more pleased with how great this final product looks; after the first practice day, students were convinced it would be a disaster but to their delight, it was a success!

Students will install these around school with a short bit of information about Andy Warhol.  

I will have more pictures to come, I was just too excited not to post this!

Our School's spin on the logo

Frank Big Bear portraits

Fourth grade students looked at the art of Minnesota native artist Frank Big Bear of the White Earth Reservation. We watched this video ( http://www.mnoriginal.org/episode/mn-original-show-206/frank-big-bear/   )and discussed his grid like style, we also looked at his use of complimentary colors to make his art bold and stand out among other artistic styles. Students practiced drawing a face with a grid pattern over the face, and around the head. 

Students used colored pencils to fill in each grid space, they outlined the facial features to make them easy to see.

Busy 4th graders

Fourth Grade has been busy with a clay proposal, as well as working on American Indian artist style self portraits.

Students had to draw and write a short proposal of a 3D clay project, students chose something important to them, while having the freedom to create (almost) anything.

Max the puppy

Minecraft "Creeper"

Students in fourth grade are also in the process of creating a Frank Big Bear style self portrait.  Frank Big Bear is a Minnesotan artist from the White Earth Reservation.

He uses an interesting style using complimentary colors and a modified grid to create an interesting color scheme and portrait.

Students first draw a large face, some features may be exaggerated.  They then draw random lines over the face to make a organic grid. Every new line they run into, is a new color.  Each color should be somewhere near their complimentary color.

Finished work coming soon!