Robots: Da Vinci Meets Pollock

Before third graders learned about Da Vinci, we created backgrounds for our artwork in the style of Jackson Pollock.  We read "Action Jackson," and got a feel for how Pollock lived and worked.  We learned that Pollock dripped and drizzled house paint all over huge canvases in his studio.  Next, we did our own abstract expressionist string paintings on colored paper.  If you want to see how we did that check out this post from last year!

Next, we read "Leonardo and the Flying Boy."  Through this story, we learned that Leonardo was not only famous for painting the Mona Lisa but he was also a great sculptor, musician, scientist and inventor!  We got to peek at a few of his sketches of inventions that were drawn way before their time!  We used his creative inspiration to invent robots of our own!

Learning Goals: I can...

- Tell about Jackson Pollock

- Create a string painting in the style of Pollock

- Tell about Da Vinci

- Create my own unique robot

- Paint smooth edges

- Use chalk to create highlights to make more robot look more 3D (form)

Mona Lisa Parodies

Wow! I have amazingly creative 3rd graders!  This has been a project that has been so exciting for ALL of us!  Everyone's art looks so unique and personalized.  I must admit I was really nervous about this project because I knew kids were going to need help left and right in order to figure out how to put their unique imaginations onto paper.  I'm so glad that I took a risk on this project idea. The rich opportunity for creativity and problem solving outweighed the pressure I feel to have a good product for parents to appreciate.  In the end, it turns out that my 3rd graders have already been developing the confidence and skills to handle the stress this project puts on them.  Sometimes I get nervous about pushing the envelope on this because at the end of the day no art teacher wants to give students more than they can handle and harm the trust our kids have in us!

First we looked at parodies of the Mona Lisa created by other famous artists (and some not so famous). We noticed that we knew it was the Mona Lisa mostly because of the face and the hand position.

Parody: A funny version of a famous picture, story or song.

We came up with a list of possible parodies we could illustrate using the face and hands of the Mona Lisa.  I found the kids understood it best when I explained that we needed to think of the Mona Lisa as an actress.  As a group we made a list of the roles the kids wanted her to play. (We laughed and laughed at these ideas).

Through my examples, I gave students the basic idea of how to show Mona leaning on something or standing showing her whole body.  From this point, students took off on their own and I moved around the room from student to student helping solve individual needs, providing advice and suggestions.

Learning Goals: I can...
- Tell about the Mona Lisa (here is a link to the video we watched)
- Explain what a parody is
- Create a unique Mona Lisa Parody
- Pencil lightly (so I can erase)
- Add color carefully

... and some finished masterpieces!