2 Soul Sisters Art Ed Blog: Bringing you fun, fresh art vibes for the classroom! Packed with inspiring lesson plans, creative projects, and easy tips to spark your students’ creativity. With colorful pics and step-by-step guides, we make art teaching a breeze. Check out our TPT and Shopify Store for more unique lessons—come vibe with us and get creative!
In 1956, Thiebaud moved to New York, where he was in the midst of the Abstract Expressionist movement. He was particularly interested in work by Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, but fashioned his own approach to art, adapting the thick pigments used by the abstract expressionists to his own subjects and style. Having returned to California, by the early 1960s Thiebaud’s best-known works, colloquial paintings of food and consumer goods, had emerged in mature form. Depictions of everyday items in American life—sandwiches, gumball machines, jukeboxes, toys, cafeteria-type foods, and cakes and pies—reflect a turn toward representational painting. These deadpan still life subjects are set against light backgrounds, often white, with the objects rendered in lush, shiny oil paints. The thick, insistent textures and the playful colors
Thiebaud uses for his commonplace objects and their enframing shadows challenge our perceptions of art subjects and meaning. They are still life paintings, but with a difference. Although his works are often classified as part of the American pop art movement, Thiebaud also painted portraits, but even these retained his signature broad treatment of light and shadow, thick paint, and bright Kool-Aid colors.
In 1972, Thiebaud settled permanently in San Francisco and added paintings of the landscape and city views to his subject matter. Using the unique geography of the Bay Area for inspiration, Thiebaud’s landscapes are dramatic representations distinguished by forms plunging at breathtaking angles into or across space and rendered in bold patterns of color. Thiebaud has continued to paint still-life as well, and with affinities to the work of many artists held in The Phillips Collection, for example Chardin, Hopper, Morandi, and Diebenkorn; his still-life paintings reflect the continuity and visual connections between past and present that guided Duncan Phillips’s vision for the collection
The kids love clay and FISHBOWLS! As you can see, some of these fishbowls have some serious fish. Fun project for third grade!
Directions:
Week 1: The kids looked at Henri Matisse's Goldfish Bowl painting. We talked a little about Matisse's life and work. Also, we reviewed slip and scoring clay. Then, the kids drew their plan for their fishbowl.
Week 2-I had pre-cut 2 patterns for the fish bowls. I had pre-sliced slabs of clay. The kids looked at their drawings from the previous week. They designed their fishbowls with the clay. They used straws, plastic forks, plastic knives, and skewers to build their fishbowls.
Week 3-I had let the clay dry and fired the fishbowls. They painted the fishbowls with acrylic paint.
From Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here," you will find the line "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl."
I thought that song was quite fitting for this particular post.
Mrs. Byrd in 5th grade ventured out and had her students try their hands at this lesson....Sunprints. I thought it was pretty cool. I went back to take pictures. Have you ever done this with your classes? I have but it has been years. It was an introduction to a photography unit I did when I was teaching middle school in Atlanta. I had a full blown dark room and this was a great introductory lesson on positive and negative shapes. I love walking down the hallways of Maclay. We have so many art integrated lessons on campus and I love to do shout outs to them!
How do you use this:
Make photographic type prints using just sun and water. Sunprint paper goes through a unique chemical change when exposed to light. Try this fun experiment and watch an image emerge before your very eyes!
Everybody loves a little sunshine and light in art or while you are outside hanging out!
Henry is an American artist who has been described as "Seattle's most prolific muralist." He has painted over 180 murals and sold over 2,000 canvases. For a complete bio, Click HERE!
How did I hear about Henry?
One of my dear students, Laney Blair, discovered Henry on a trip to Seattle. She said that we just had to do some of his awesome art. So, that is just what the kids did.
We looked into Henry and learned about his artwork. The students picked a "Henry" piece and tried to make it their own. I encouraged them to put their own twist on his work. Some of the kids got this, others did not.
