Art Project Revisited

Now that I'm engaging adults in online art classes, I am revamping some of my favorite lesson plans and adapting them for all ages. The challenge is to be able to complete the project in less than one hour using only supplies that people would typically have around the house. So far, it's worked out fine, and as usual, my students are adapting their art to make it personal and to make use of what they have available to them.

This is my new and improved sample for our recent project on balanced compositions, which was inspired by Joan Miró.

My friend and organizer of these contemplative workshops did such an amazing job on her Miró composition that I have to share it here. Here is the artists' own interpretation:

"The turquoise pieces are the things in my life that are working well. The big yellow geometric piece is like a messy monster that represents some more chaotic and uncertain areas of my life right now. I love seeing the pieces laid out on the paper together like a map. It really shows how things are working."

"After playing with all the pieces I had a big, ”Aha!”: Balance is when the messy monster is not any bigger than the turquoise calm in my life. The messiness doesn’t have to go away completely, but it shouldn’t overpower the whole operation."

And my comments: I love the smaller patterned pieces that maybe have some of the messy bits but are overcoming the chaos to become a worthwhile, positive outcome. The Miro touches are awesome! They provide emphasis (asterisk), connections or decision points (ellipsis dot-to-dot), and gratitude (the spirals). My own first example for my 5th-graders also used the more pleasing pastel versions of the three primary colors. Pastels may indicate that you are maintaining calmness. Funny how the cooler color is your favorite! The outlining is also a very classy touch and it makes the shapes pop against the neutral background.

This Miró example is actually a great segue to our next project in which we will create patterns using repeated shapes. The spiral will again make an appearance, but the star of the show will be the heart shape:

The theme of this Circle of Love sponsored project is gratitude, often symbolized by a short, g-shaped spiral and the color pink. I decided to resurrect one of my 3rd-grade projects that employs a heart-shaped cutout. My artists will trace the heart shape repeatedly, allowing overlap to create other shapes, forming either regular of random patterns. Students will have the option of using watercolor paint or markers.

Did you know that Vincent Van Gogh considered his Sunflowers paintings to be about gratitude? He also used the spiral shape in the sky of his Starry Night painting. Another artist who was obsessed with the spiral was Surrealist Salvador Dali, who found the shape of a rhinoceros' horn to be that of a perfect logarithmic spiral. He was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer. Spirals are also present in nature in seashells and sunflowers, though I never really stopped to look at how the seeds were arranged. Besides, they are much more tightly spun than the traditional mathematical spiral.

Don't forget about the golden ratio and the Fibonacci Spiral, present in both da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring (a.k.a. 'Mona Lisa of the North'). I blogged about them both in my Mona Lisa post from February of last year.

As a child, I recall being fascinated by the geometric toy Spirograph (1967), and we would spend hours drawing patterns using different color pens by rotating circular gears inside or outside similarly cogged ring-shaped wheels. Dürer's polygons are captured in a paper by G.H. Hughes entitled, The Polygons of Albrecht Dürer -1525. It gives the mathematical basis for the shapes one may produce with a Spirograph.

Illustration by Budi Satria Kwan

So, why the spiral for gratitude? Well, it loosely resembles a lowercase 'g'. Apparently, the spiral also represents spiritual growth evolving from something small and becoming something logarithmically greater. I look at it as the little things that you do, like being grateful internally or externally, that amount to much more good for your own spiritual health and the well being of others.

Gratitude is learned and knowledge is wisdom.