Keith Haring Unit
How lines, shapes, and colors communicate
Days: 4, 40-minute classes
Supplies: drawing papers/supplies, old cereal boxes cut down, foam pieces, peel and stick foam shapes, scissors and glue, computer paper (bright and white), black tempera paint, paintbrushes
Vocabulary: Elements of Art, Lines, Shapes, Color, communicate, interpret
I love to use Keith Haring to start out our year in 3rd grade. All my 3rd grade lessons center around artists. We might be comparing how 3 artists painted oceans in different ways for a Common Core tie-in, or we might be focusing on how one artist uses the Elements of art, but it's always an artist theme.
On the first day, we review the Elements of Art and then talk about how artists use lines, shapes, and colors to communicate. We look at lines and find lines that are happy, sad, or angry; we look at shapes and interpret their meaning; then we look at a heart and change it in different ways to change the meaning.
After all that, we look at Keith Haring's art. We interpret several of his paintings, watch a short video, and draw our own Keith Haring figure on a half sheet of paper.
All that in ONE DAY. But your kids will be so engaged - we love Keith Haring. Here's a link to my Prezi - please copy into your own account if you're going to edit it at all.
On the second day, we create our collagraph printing plate. I gave each student a "printing plate" (the cereal box cut to size), plus a small piece of foam, and they were to draw/cut/glue their figure to their plate. Step 2 was to cut lines for motion. Then they were allowed to use their leftover foam and foam shapes to decorate with. Honestly, I didn't spend any money on the foam shapes. I have had SO MANY parents donate these over the years, and I almost never use them. I was so happy to have a reason to pull them out!
On the third day, we printed. I used computer paper; every student got to choose one bright color and they all got one white. We painted our plates with black paint and printed! It was a totally new process, so some kids were very unsure of themselves but they did a great job.
Finally, we added color. I made a big deal about the joy of multiples, and how we can experiment. we used oil pastels to decorate our prints. They were required to color one, but they could choose which one. If they had a bad print, they could add color to try to improve it. If they had a great print, they could add color to enhance it. They could color both, if they wanted, but they only had to color one. This lesson went so well and we started the year STRONG and ENGAGED.
