Art Class for Seniors

Husky Stadium

This year I started teaching art at a senior center in Tacoma. As a dry run for my pastel painting class, my daughter, my niece, and I created paintings from our favorite landscapes. Here is my daughter's beautiful tribute to UW Husky sports. She employed many of the techniques I wanted to impart. Note the different textures she was able to accomplish and how she has adeptly captured the reflections in the golden water. She also successfully overlaid the white watercraft!

Sunflowers

My niece made a superb rendition of a landscape of sunflowers. I like how she modified the sky color to think outside of the blue box. She used a variety of pastel strokes. Many famous artists often copied the works of other artists in order to expand their own style and pay homage to the masters. Of the 142 paintings, Vincent Van Gogh completed in the final year of his life, 21 were copies of Jean-Francois Millet's works. As in music, artists add their own interpretation, often improvising a composition for their own pleasure and unique performance.

My seniors learned the basic techniques of pastel painting at a senior center in Tacoma. We explored pastels, paper, and other supplies, as well as, a methodology for recreating a landscape from a favorite photograph. One of my seniors was inspired by my niece's creation and made her own rendition. 

My own example pays homage to Edgar Degas, the artist everyone immediately associates with pastels. Realize that this example was selected in order to show most of the pastel strokes. And yes it's not a landscape! But the one on the right is a wonderful example from my senior art class!

In a second session, we used a limited palette to produce an interior scene. Van Gogh's "The Prayer"  portrait was shown as an example.

Art Projects Inspired by Artists

For abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock, who is famous for splatter paintings, I decided to teach a lesson focusing on LINE. The project involved making lines using a crayon and a washable marker to form a pattern on either a long strip of white paper or a six-inch hexagon shape. A shimmering ink Bingo dauber is used to paint over the design such that the crayon will somewhat resist the ink wash. The strips are then woven together for each classroom to make a group project, matted, and suitable for an art auction. The hexagons may be displayed like a puzzle on a bulletin board temporarily then individual pieces may be sent home with each student.

Woven Friendships - Inspired by Jackson Pollock 

Pollock Polygons

Positive-Negative Space 'Vase' - Inspired by Manet

For Realist, Edouard Manet, we studied his "Vase of Peonies on a Small Pedestal", leading to a lesson on positive-negative space. The first project involved drawing a top and bottom half of a picture (e.g. a vase of flowers) on contrasting colors of construction paper. We used dark oil pastel on the lighter-value paper and a contrasting color of oil pastel on the darker-value paper.

Japanese Notans - Inspired by Edouard Manet

The second project is equally complicated and involves Japanese Notans. We used a 12"X12" piece of white construction paper as a background, then six-inch square pieces of other colors of construction paper. Students were to cut out shapes from the square and flip them out to each of the four sides, one edge at a time. It took both patience and precision to line up the pieces along the sides of the somewhat delicate centerpiece. Spectacular!

For German and Russian Expressionists, Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky, my inspiration comes from Kandinsky's "Color Study. Squares with Concentric Circles".

Color Wheel Sky Inspired by Kandinsky

The topic was COLOR and the project was called, "Color Wheel Sky". Students did watercolor salt paintings. Some of the results were quite unexpected, though pretty remarkable, especially with non-rainbow color schemes.

For Salvador Dali and Joan Miro, the lessons were again about color, though this time we studied warm and cool colors and contrasting colors. I'm sure you've seen the hand with the concentric lines before.

Psychedelic Hands - Inspired by Salvador Dali

To change this up, incorporate Zentangles (a.k.a doodles) and instead of tracing the hand and drawing lines trace and cut out the hands and mount them on opposite color paper. Use black marker for the Zentangles and embellished with silver gel pen. My original intent was to use the gel pens for everything, but unfortunately, it didn't show up well or achieve the desired effect, so we resorted to markers instead.

Zentangle Hand - Inspired by Dali

For Miro, who largely used the primary colors and black in his artwork, our lesson additionally included a discussion about composition. While I was on vacation, I got the idea of using discarded newspapers. It was a lot of prep work to find appropriate newsprint pages and tear them into the size I wanted. I let the students decide how much newsprint they wanted for their backgrounds, and we used black washable markers for the characteristic Miro lines with dots.

Composition on Newsprint - Inspired by Miro

Art Projects (Continued)

Blended Seascapes - Inspired by Camille Pissarro

The artwork of Impressionist, Camille Pissarro, inspired the following landscapes made by blending chalk pastels and white tempera paint. We were out of tempera at the school where I volunteer, so we had to use watered down acrylic paint. Not sure the effect was the same. Anyway, the point was to learn how to use pastels and how they may be blended together in a multi-media art project.

Three Tree Landscapes

Jean-Francois Millet was a Naturalist painter who influenced the artwork of Vincent Van Gogh. He painted peasant life in France not long after the French Revolution. "The Gleaners" is the inspiration for the landscapes on the left, drawn using oil pastels and analogous colors. The three trees drive home the concept of space by using diminishing size and perspective, guided by the Rule of Thirds that helps the artist with the placement of elements and the focal point within the composition.

Value Leaf Study - Inspired by Picasso

For Pablo Picasso, my 4th-graders did value studies using leaf-shaped templates to create a patterned composition, then shaded the leaves to imply lines of separation between leaves. Some used a single leaf and divided their backgrounds into shaded sections.

My 3rd-graders enjoyed creating Cubist self-portraits inspired by the many self-portraits of Pablo Picasso. See my "3rd-Grade Projects" post.

Wrapping Paper Self-Portraits - Inspired by Reynolds/Stuart

We also did wrapping paper self-portraits with 5th- and 6th-graders inspired by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Gilbert Stuart (Portrait artist of George Washington). Each year, the school collects leftover gift wrap from the holidays and I do this lesson in January.
In July, I will be teaching seniors how to do something similar using decorative papers.

In an Op Art lesson inspired by Victor Vasarely, 5th-graders learned how to do paper weaving. We used contrasting colors and combinations of wavy and straight lines to achieve this effect.

For 3rd-graders, the project (February lesson) was to cut out a heart shape and trace it onto a 12"X18" piece of watercolor paper in an overlapping pattern then color in each intersection (shape) to form a composition. This is similar to the value study we did for the Picasso lesson, but more about geometric pattern rather than shading.




Tissue paper collage is a fun way to create a background and a good lesson about warm and cool colors. This one was inspired by Vincent Van Gogh. We added black paper cutouts (silhouettes) to create a scene using perspective. Notice the limo and hot air balloon on the road in the desert. The 2nd part was another session inspired by Norman Rockwell's "The Dugout".

Figures Atop  Geometric Background - Inspired by N.C. Wyeth

Sample Concept - Inspired by Johannes Vermeer

We used repetition of shape to create movement in this composition inspired by the illustrations of N. C. Wyeth. His "Blue Lock the Queen" depicts a white horse being chased, so movement is an obvious choice for teaching an art concept. There was a lot of prep for this lesson, since I needed to search magazines for figures, mount them on oaktag, and cut them out for students to trace. We used neon tagboard for the figures and geometric shapes displayed on a black background...
Striking! And not because this example shows Felix Hernandez throwing a strike. Ha!

I struggled to come up with a project inspired by Vermeer. His perspective in "The Lacemaker" is so shallow. I decided to use oaktag-mounted geometric volumes as templates for 5th-graders to arrange still lifes of overlapping shapes. They then shaded each volume and optionally added shadows for their compositions.

All of these lesson plans will eventually be made available on ETSY or Pinterest. Requests may be made by submitting Comments to this or other posts.

Fun Family Art Activities

You know how antsy kids get in a restaurant when waiting forever to get the food? I love those activity page kids’ menus that restaurants hand out along with crayons to keep them busy. The game ‘I Spy’ played on long road trips may also be played (quietly) at a restaurant. You draw some small detail (like part of a salt shaker) and the other person has to guess what it is. All you need is a pen and paper from Mom’s purse.

When I was a kid there was a Popeye Show hosted by Tom Hatten who would draw random lines (‘squiggles’) on a page and bring them together to create something familiar. Lines sent in by viewers were turned into an animal or funny looking character. A prize was awarded if he couldn’t turn the lines into something. Five-line drawing (as I call it) involves each person drawing five random lines on a small piece of paper, trading papers, and trying to make a cohesive picture from the lines.

Using two different color pens allows you to see the original lines separate from the added details. I start by using a large piece of newsprint hung on an easel or an available whiteboard. Then I get someone from each table to draw me a 'squiggle'. 

Try not to draw 5 individual pictures though.

I also use this as a warm-up exercise in my art classes where the topic is LINE.

Students are totally surprised by the outcome and are anxious to make their own drawings with their classmates and perhaps later with family.

Combination Man (a.k.a Monster) Drawing Game

You can build a monster by folding a small piece of paper into thirds, then passing the papers around, in turn, drawing head, torso, and legs. Each person doesn’t know what the others have drawn because you fold to hide the previous portion before passing it along to draw the next part. This works best with crayons, markers, or colored pencils, or different color ballpoint pens. In the end, you open up the paper to reveal your crazy monster.

My grown daughter did this activity with friends vacationing in Port Townsend while waiting for food at Waterfront Pizza. The restaurant supplied the crayons.

When children first begin to pick up crayons to color it is important to foster their freedom of expression by allowing them to both choose the colors and the way in which they apply them. Don’t worry that their lines don’t fill in the outlined shapes. Scribbling is an early form of expression much like stick-figure drawing of family members. Even coloring book pages may be drawn in non-traditional colors. As their ability progresses, they will eventually adopt more traditionally recognizable pictures. Drawing or coloring with a child can speed up the process.

Adding pattern to the shapes rather than completely filling them in with solid color is a way of making coloring fun and more interesting. You may also find interesting ways to decorate the backgrounds and fill up that empty white space. It’s like reading to a child and changing the story or adding different voices. This will keep them engaged and they will look forward to the activity all the more.

Teaching an Art Lesson

1. Start with an inspiration. This can be a work by a famous artist or a subject (likes gorillas or flowers). Include some background on the person or topic. If it’s an artist, then using the synopsis of them from the Internet works really well. It includes their picture, a short bio, quotes, their style, and samples of their works. For topics, it’s fun to research art/artists that use that subject (e.g. flowers).
   
2. Select/highlight a work of art and engage students in a discussion guided by questions. Include open-ended questions where there can be multiple answers supported by individual ideas or thoughts. This is my favorite part, especially when it evokes lots of enthusiasm and participation. Getting students to express their opinions is surprisingly easy to do. Try not to pick on the same person repeatedly so that everyone gets a chance to contribute. I almost always learn something from the students, and I am impressed not only by their ideas and observations but also their worldliness. And what a bonus when they actually use art vocabulary!
3. Continue the discussion by comparing and contrasting the works of the same artist or two different artists, e.g. Manet and Monet.
   
4. Focus on an element or principle of art for your lesson. It should have something to do with the artwork you chose above. Making a placemat by laminating the printout of both the Elements & Principles of Art is a good way to protect the tables/desks and it reminds students of the art vocabulary they are learning or have studied in earlier lessons.
              
5. Include a warm-up exercise (time permitting) to get the creative juices flowing.

   
6. Select/develop an art project that may be completed in the remainder of your class time. Sometimes your teacher will allow students to work on finishing their assignments when they have free time. Some projects may require additional lessons to complete. For example, I like using the first lesson to create an interesting background like a tissue paper collage, followed by a second lesson that creates the foreground perhaps using black construction paper cutouts to form silhouettes.

Talking About Art - Open-ended Questions to Lead Aesthetic Discussion

Talking about art with someone is a fun way to learn, express your own thoughts and views, and experience the world through someone else’s eyes while looking into the artist’s soul. To accomplish this in a classroom setting, I typically create a series of (open-ended) questions about a particular work by a highlighted artist in each of my lessons. I always start off by going around the classroom asking, “Where does your eye go first?” Students discover that everyone sees things differently. Sometimes you will find that your own view is shared by others. Our eyes are drawn to our favorite colors, the eyes in a portrait, the lightest or darkest value, a particular detail or focus, or simply something that draws our own interest.

Scanning an artwork in-person or viewing a large poster or presenting electronically in MS-PowerPoint is a great way to socialize art with students. You'll begin to discover what they know and help them learn more about art concepts and how to express themselves using art vocabulary.

Try to come up with at least two questions in each of the following four categories: (1) Sensory (line, color, value, texture, shape, form, space); (2) Formal (balance, unity, dominance, repetition); (3) Technical (method, medium, style, materials); and (4) Expressive (feelings, mood, reactions, responses).

Here are some typical questions:

Sensory

• What colors do you see? How would you describe them relative to each other?
• How would this scene feel different to you if the colors were more realistic?
• Can you name five colors found in this painting? 
• What color is used to ground the painting?
• What different textures do you see?

Formal

• What colors dominate the picture?
• What shapes repeat throughout the composition? Is the painting a balanced composition?
• How has the artist used color for emphasis? To create interest? To guide your eye?
• Where do you think the artist has placed the most emphasis?

Technical

• Is this a realistic painting? Why or why not?
• Is this a landscape? Seascape? Or something else?
• Why do you suppose the artist chose such bright colors?
• How does the artist use the space to show depth?
• Do you think the artist was painting from real life or did he make up this scene?
• How has the artist used light or dark for emphasis and to create the illusion of three dimensions?
• What did the artist do to pull off his illusion?

Expressive

• Where do you think this painting is supposed to take place?
• What’s happening in this painting?
• Can you point to and describe the objects on the left at the horizon? Do they remind you of anywhere else in the scene?
• Could this have been a modern-day photograph? Why or why not?
• Do you think this painting looks different in-person? How?
• What do you think is the most detailed part of the painting? Does the detail make sense everywhere in the painting?

I used the bolded questions (above) to guide the discussion of The Gleaners (1857) by French artist, Jean-François Millet.

Don't forget to start by asking, “Where does your eye go first?” This tradition will set the stage for discussion and will become a familiar way to introduce a print.

3rd-Grade Art Projects

I was asked by a 3rd-grade teacher to teach a unit on drawing, inspired by Ivan the Gorilla, whom the class was reading about. We also learned how to draw Ruby the Elephant. The subject was further inspired by artists who had painted portraits of gorillas. I even showed Gorillas as Artists, depicting Koko the gorilla and her abstract artwork. See WeDrawAnimals.com.

I next showed students how to draw leaf shapes and handed out sheets of paper with lines representing half of a leaf. Students practiced drawing leaves by completing the other half of each leaf. Next, we discussed the concept of positive-negative space. I showed the vase with two faces and several other optical illusions based on the concept.

The project was to create a leaf pattern making use of three leaf shapes and the negative scrap left behind when they were cut out. We used fall colors as our inspiration.

Another fun lesson is teaching children how to draw their self-portrait Picasso style. I showed a brief history of the artist, including: pablo-picasso-self-portrait-style-evolution.

I also showed a self-portrait painted by Emma Watson and asked students if they could guess the artist. I demonstrated how they could draw their own face from the front and one side (in profile) on the same picture (like a Picasso).

The final project was inspired by American painter, Arthur Wesley Dow, who is famous for teaching artist, Georgia O'Keeffe, and photographers, Alfred Steiglitz (O‘Keefe‘s husband) and Edward Steichen. Learning about Line, Mass, and Color, we made landscapes using black construction paper, thick white oil pastel lines, and brightly-colored (chalk) pastels. The results were spectacular!

Kindergarten Art Projects

Here are some projects I've done with kindergartners. The first one is inspired by two Dutch artists, Theo van Doesburg, and Piet Mondrian, emphasizing the use of LINE.

I introduced the lesson by showing students Dutch things they'd find in Holland. I talked briefly about each artist and showed some of their works. The classroom I taught in was organized such that my assistant and I could take turns working with small groups of 4-5 kids, while the teacher occupied the rest of the class. Such rotation allowed for more individual attention and less chaos. Having a parent volunteer who is familiar with the kids and a cooperative teacher made all the difference.

The second project is a collage inspired by artists who painted flowers. We used this as a group project for the school auction.

I found a website listing the-10-best-flower-paintings.

We used brush-style Sharpies on deli paper to make our own flower paintings. Since the paper was similar to tracing paper, we prepared ahead of time by mounting slightly larger pieces atop a white paper with a bold outline of a square as a guide. Later, the masterpieces were trimmed and arranged in a design to fit a particular size canvas. I then used liquid starch to decoupage each square onto the canvas.

The third project is a mitten tissue-paper collage inspired by the author/illustrator, Eric Carle. Each student chose a pastel-colored mitten cutout to decorate using either warm or cool colors of tissue paper. They also made their own label and chose a matching background made from wrapping paper mounted ahead of time on a coordinating piece of construction paper. 

The mittens needed time to dry and also need to be ironed flat, so the final assembly was done later. The finished mitten collages were hung with clothespins to emulate a clothesline in the classroom.

Art Around Us

Visual art is all around us. Murals on the sides of buildings, sculptures, statues, wall hangings, paintings, photographs, billboards, magazine ads, even the clothing we wear. This is the Hop Man mural at one of the breweries we visited on vacation.

I marvel at the fountains by George Tsutakawa in Seattle and Maple Valley’s Maplewood Golf Course, the Chihuly Garden in Seattle, and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. I often take pictures of local art to use in my art lessons. Probably one of the most neglected forms of visual art is sculpture. Understanding and being able to visualize objects in three dimensions is difficult to teach. Two-dimensional art is the most common, though one must discover how an artist creates the illusion of form, depth, and space through the use of various techniques.

In Kent, WA, one of my friends likes to fence-bomb chain-link fences to beautify the area. You will find these along the Soos Creek Trail and 196^th Street among other locations. Check out the railings at the 192^nd trail entrance; they are dripping with neon woven yarn.

The design for this particular installation reflects the shapes repeated in the electrical tower in the background. Notice the triangular shapes and different sizes. The art principle of repetition brings a clear sense of unity, consistency, and cohesiveness to this design. Repetition is also used to create rhythm. This looks difficult to do and is especially time-consuming for one person to complete. What a canvas this would make on the border of a school’s playground! A wonderful group art project for a classroom!

When I am teaching, I often include segments about art in the news, using articles clipped from local newspapers or Internet stories about stolen or missing art that has recently been recovered. When I taught about Norman Rockwell’s ‘The Dugout’ and ‘Rosie the Riveter’, there was a story about the reunion of some of his models in his most famous illustrations from the Saturday Evening Post.

When in Palm Springs, you will find art that pays homage to Marilyn Monroe everywhere.

My family enjoys vacationing in Pt Townsend and typically stays in the officers’ housing on Fort Worden State Park. In the past, the starkly furnished houses only displayed black-and-white photographs from the turn of the century when it was used as a military base. Now that they have been renovated, new artwork has appeared. We were pleasantly surprised to see large needlepoint versions of Pinkie by Thomas Lawrence and Sir Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy displayed side-by-side in the dining room. BTW, prints of these flank the entryway of the Cleavers' home on Leave it to Beaver.

Art helps pass the time and is a good way to entertain kids and escape electronic devices. 

Look at this watercolor masterpiece created by a 3-yr-old we babysat for.