Third grade Leonardo da Vinci meets Jackson Pollock!

3rd grade artists are learning about Leonardo da Vinci and comparing his work to the work of Jackson Pollock! They learned about how da Vinci was an incredible inventor and that he was the first to create the designs for a robot! He was also an incredible realistic artist, much unlike Jackson Pollock's Splatter Art. We combined our knowledge of both to create our own robots with a splatter art background. 

Fourth grade Edgar Dégas and Jackson Pollock figure drawing

Fourth grade artists reviewed the artist that they learned about last year, Jackson Pollock. We talked about how his art is abstract and is more about the action of painting than the representation of what is painted. We used his style of painting to be the background for our Edgar Degas figure drawing project. 

First, we had fun dripping paint onto our papers and then blowing through a straw to push and mix the paint around on our papers.

We also reviewed warm and cool color schemes by painting one half of the paper with each color group.

Next, we watched a movie about Edgar Degas and wrote down our favorite 5 or 6 facts on a bookmark to put on the backs of our artworks. They use these facts to share with their families what they have learned about this project when they get to bring it home. We had a few kids volunteer to model some poses for us to practice our figure drawing. We tried to focus on having poses that included diagonals so that we could see more movement in our artworks like Edgar Degas did.  

We carefully cut out our figure drawing silhouettes and glued them to our warm/cool papers.

On the back of the artwork, students wrote six facts that they knew about the artist.

Learning Goals:
I can recognize the art of Edgar Degas.
I can recognize the art of Jackson Pollock.
I can tell some facts about Degas and Pollock's life and art.
I can paint in the style of Pollock.
I can draw a human figure with the correct proportions.

Reporting: What I learned about George Rodrigue and Jackson Pollock: Blue Dogs

One thing I learned during this project is that how to show value in our blue dog painting - Kensley 3rd Grade

One thing I learned during this project is that George Rodrigue painted the blue dog over and over in different backgrounds - Lee - 3rd Grade

One thing that I learned during this project is that George Rodrigue was inspired by his white dog Tiffany and the Loupe Garou - Abby - 3rd Grade

3rd Grade Jackson Pollock artworks

3rd Graders had a blast choosing a color family/scheme and then using watercolor paints to blow through a straw. They watched the colors mix and their finished product is reminiscent of Jackson Pollock's splatter painting. We learned about his life by reading a book about him, watching a youtube video, and of course, observing and talking about his works. 

3rd Grade "Action Jackson"

3rd grade artists are learning about the Abstract Action Paintings of the artist Jackson Pollock! We created our own "action" paintings by blowing paint with straws (instead of throwing paint around our classroom like Jackson did). We also learned a bit about Jackson's life and work and reviewed rainbow order in our art.

On the back of our artwork, we add our "cheat sheet" or Art Critique where we can go to help us explain to our parents what we were learning about. It is also a great summative evaluation of our learning:

Here are a couple of books we read with some classes about the life and work of Action Jackson:

We also watched this youtube clip about Jackson while coloring:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVmrwtc8tXc&list=PLFtAUqSGF7UtM_w7Sn-EBCAtDux7tZS6s

3rd Grade George Rodrigue and Jackson Pollock

3rd graders have been busy studying the lives and artworks of George Rodrigue and Jackson Pollock. They created a colorful oil pastel background with scratched designs for the background that is abstract like Pollock. Then they drew their own blue dog like Rodrigue, each dog with it's own theme.  

3rd grade Pollock/Rodrigue Dogs

3rd grade artists studied the art of Jackson Pollock as well as George Rodrigue. They learned that Jackson Pollock was an artist who loved to splatter and spill paint onto a huge canvas. They were inspired by his artwork and created a background for their dogs.

The also looked at the art of George Rodrigue. Rodrigue was famous for his Blue Dog. They looked at the ways that he used his blue dogs to communicate in his work. Our artists created their own themed blue dogs.