Organic Subtraction Sculpture with Ra Paulette

Lesson Objective 

Work with elements of art: Shape, Color

Work with Principles of Art: Unity 

Create an Organic Subtraction sculpture in the style of Ann Weber or Ra Paulette

Key Vocabulary: 

Organic Shape: Organic shapes and forms are typically irregular or asymmetrical. Organic shapes are often found in nature, but man-made shapes can also imitate organic forms.

Anthropomorphic:  Described or thought of as being like human beings in appearance, behavior.

Analogous Color: Analogous colors are groups of colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel, with one being the dominant color, which tends to be a primary or secondary color, and two on either side complementing, which tend to be tertiary.

Monochromatic: Are derived from a single base hue and extended using its shades, tones and tints. Tints are achieved by adding white and shades and tones are achieved by adding a darker color, gray or black.

Materials: 

Floral Foam

Clay Tools

Acrylic Paints in Analogous Colors 

White glue

Focus Artist/s: 

Ra Paulette

Ann Weber

Project Requirements: 

Subtract from a Floral Foam Block exploring organic shape and unity in the style of Ra Paulette and/or Ann Weber

Sketchbook: Students draw construction/color plans for each side of their Organic Subtraction sculpture and submit plans for approval. 

Final Sculpture: 

Organic shape and unity with Paulette/Weber influence apparent

Analogous/Monochromatic colors present on ALL sides final sculpture

Assessment: 

Informal: Written Self Critique

Formal: Artist Statement

Formal: Grading final sculpture

CA STANDARDS: 

1.1 Analyze and discuss complex ideas, such as distortion, color theory, arbitrary color, scale, expressive content, and real versus virtual in works of art.

1.2 Discuss a series of their original works of art, using the appropriate vocabulary of art.

2.1 Solve a visual arts problem that involves the effective use of the elements of art and the principles of design.

2.2 Plan and create works of art that reflect complex ideas, such as distortion, color theory, arbitrary color, scale, expressive content, and real versus virtual.

4.2 Identify the intentions of artists creating contemporary works of art and explore the implications of those intentions.

4.5 Employ the conventions of art criticism in writing and speaking about works of art.

5.2 Compare and contrast works of art, probing beyond the obvious and identifying psychological content found in the symbols and images.

Modifications: 

English Language Learner: Handout for project, project samples, Power point with visuals, Critique for additional understanding, Demonstration of techniques, group activities to check for understanding

Special Needs: Handout for project, project samples, Power point with visuals, Critique for additional understanding, Demonstration of techniques

Accelerated Learner: Expand on skills learned to create a unique project. 

Advanced art students will be asked to increase the difficulty of their final sculpture They will also be expected incorporate more details and principles into the final project

Scaffolding adaptations: 

Students will revisit Shape, Color and Unity from the earlier learning. We will use similar visuals to refresh earlier learning.  Notes on Art history, Key Vocabulary and artists will be taken throughout discussions for added understanding. Creating sketchbook plans and Constructing final sculpture will be demo started in class using guided instruction. 

Anticipatory Set: Art Link: 

Small Group Critique Ra Paulette’s Cave Carvings 

Describe

Analyze

Interpret

Large Group Critique 

OBJECTIVE: Introduce working artists exploring organic artwork in subtraction.  

Create Subtraction Sculpture from a Floral Foam Block exploring organic shape and unity in the style of Ra Paulette and/or Ann Weber

Students will understand new vocabulary as is relates to visual art

DIRECT INSTRUCTION:

Power Point Presentation Ra Paulette, Ann Weber

Pre-assessment: Critique Ra Paulette’s Cave Digging 

Opening: Art Link: Photo of Ra Paulette’s Cave Digging 

Small Group Discussion

Describe the work

Analyze the artwork

Interpret The artwork 

Large Group Discussion

Discussion: Art History:

Watch Video

ARTIST: Ra Paulette: 

Born in Chicago, grew up in Indiana

68 years old

He left school to join the Navy 

He hitchhiked around the country

Years spent in a cabin without electricity or running water

He moved to New Mexico in 1977

First cave was completed in 19

Manual labor is the foundation of my self expression.  

To do it well, is a “whole-person” activity, engaging mental and emotional strengths as well as physical strength.

When excavating the caves, I break down the movements into their simplest parts and reassemble them into the most efficient patterns to accomplish the task while maintaining bodily ease.  

Like a dancer, I “feel” the body and its movement in a conscious way.  

I’m fond of calling this “the dance of digging”,  and it is the secret of how this old man can get so much done.85

Ann Weber: 

Born Jackson, Michigan 1950

Lives and works in Emeryville, California 

1987 MFA, California College of Arts and Crafts  Oakland, California 

Studied

Inspiration: working with a palette of simple forms: cylinders and circles

Her sculptures are symbolic of male and female forms in the natural world under Viola Frey

Works from the landscape

Her shapes originate from natural forms

once enlarged they become almost anthropomorphic

KEY VOCABULARY: 

Organic Shape: Organic shapes and forms are typically irregular or asymmetrical. Organic shapes are often found in nature, but man-made shapes can also imitate organic forms.

Anthropomorphic:  Described or thought of as being like human beings in appearance, behavior.

Analogous Color: Analogous colors are groups of colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel, with one being the dominant color, which tends to be a primary or secondary color, and two on either side complementing, which tend to be tertiary.

Monochromatic: Are derived from a single base hue and extended using its shades, tones and tints. Tints are achieved by adding white and shades and tones are achieved by adding a darker color, gray or black.

Teacher Models 

Examples of vocabulary on the board throughout discussion 

Students take notes in their sketchbooks 

Teacher Monitors room throughout discussion

Check for Understanding: 

Monitor room during Pre-assessment in sketchbook

Monitor throughout discussion ensure comprehension and active note taking 

Various Activities Designed to check/enhance student comprehension

Ra Paulette Video

Students will watch video and take notes on Ra’s  Comments about his art

Activity: 

Sketchbook Drawing: Students will begin thinking about their ideas in their sketchbooks. 

FINAL PROJECT:  Subtract from a Floral Foam Block exploring organic shape and unity in the style of Ra Paulette and/or Ann Weber

Sketchbook: Students draw construction/color plans for each side of their Organic Subtraction sculpture and submit plans for approval. 

Final Sculpture: 

Organic shape and unity with Paulette/Weber influence apparent

Analogous/Monochromatic colors present on ALL sides final sculpture

Tint Wire Sculptures with Elizabeth Murray

Day One: 

Prep: Create a 24” in wire circle for each student in class: Easier to work with, prevents eye pokes. 

DISCUSSION: 

Form: What is form? 

What is sculpture? 

How is sculpture different from a painting? 

3d vs 2d

Show Elizabeth Murray’s work again

How is it like s sculpture?

How is it like a painting? 

ARTIST: Elizabeth Murray (1940-2007):

Inspired by Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock’s work, as well as Pablo Picasso’s Cubist works, American painter Elizabeth Murray’s oeuvre span styles from a Minimalist use form and color to bold, cartoonish Surrealism. 

Her works push the boundaries of a two-dimensional medium;

The irregular triangles in the “Giant Maiden” series (1972) strain against the edges of canvases painted in high relief, 

While the explosive colors on an intricate collage-like canvas in Do the Dance (2005) lend the Painting a kinetic, almost optical quality.

Project: 

Step1: Using your wire circle, create an organic shape

Step2: Using plaster strips, cover wire with plaster

Step3: To Identify: put your name on the paper plate your wire sculpture is sitting on to dry. 

Materials: 

Bowl for water

Plaster wrap http://www.dickblick.com/products/plastr-craft/?clickTracking=true

Paper plates

Wire 

Day two

 Discussion: impressionism

Value

Making colors lighter

White

Light

Art Movement: impressionism

Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement 

originated with a group of Paris-based artists. 

Their independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s, 

Harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France. 

The name of the style derives from the title of a Claude Monet work, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise)

Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), common, ordinary subject matter, 

inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. 

The development of Impressionism in the visual arts was soon followed by analogous styles in other media that became known as impressionist music and impressionist literature.

For additional information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism 

PROJECT

Step1: students  receive one pure color and white

Step2: mix their color with as much or little white as they like

Step3: paint the wire sculpture with their new color

Step4: add movement lines in black around the edges

Materials: 

Paint in many colors and white

Black paint

Paint brushes

Water containers

Paper plates for palettes. 

Post Project Week one and two: create the large sculpture by glueing the smaller works all together. I used Loctite All purpose Adhesive Caulk in Clear. 

Movement Color Wheels with Elizabeth Murray

Discussion: 

Primary colors, RED YELLOW Blue 

What are they? Why are they so important? 

What does Primary Mean

Why are they so important/what do they do? 

Secondary colors ORANGE GREEN PURPLE

What are they

Create a color wheel

Show the colors mixing

Show Murray’s work

Discuss color

Discuss shape 

        If you could go into the artwork, where would you travel first?

Discuss Music

Discuss movement

Bring MoMA app on Ipad if you have it. 

ARTIST: Elizabeth Murray (1940-2007):

Inspired by Abstract Expressionist Jackson Pollock’s work, as well as Pablo Picasso’s Cubist works, American painter Elizabeth Murray’s oeuvre span styles from a Minimalist use form and color to bold, cartoonish Surrealism. 

Her works push the boundaries of a two-dimensional medium;

The irregular triangles in the “Giant Maiden” series (1972) strain against the edges of canvases painted in high relief, 

While the explosive colors on an intricate collage-like canvas in Do the Dance (2005) lend the Painting a kinetic, almost optical quality.

Project: Create Murray inspired shape drawing and mix primary and secondary colors

Step1: draw a circle on the left part of your page, the size of your fist

Step2: Draw an organic shape/circle next to the first, lower and on the right side but have it touching the first

Step3: Draw a third organic shape/circle next to the second, below and in the middle of the two but have it touching both

Step4: draw a line from each shape to an edge

Step4: Color the shapes in primary colors

Step5: in the background behind the red and blue shapes mix the two to make purple

Step6: in the background behind the red and yellow shapes mix the two to make orange

Step7: in the background behind the yellow and blue shapes mix the two to make green

Step8: add music and movement line line Murray. 

Materials: 

Oil pastels in Yellow red blue and Black

Tag board

pencils

Organic shape and geometric shape movement figures with Keith Haring

Discussion: 

Organic Shape VS Geometric shape

Geometric shapes: 

Name some....Square, circle, rectangle, 

Can they be solved with MATH: Yes!

Organic Shapes: 

Name Some....Bird, Tree, you and me!!!

Can they be solved with Math??? NO!

Movement: 

How does Haring show movement? 

What color does he use when the figures move

ARTIST: Keith Haring

Born 1958

Age 19 first show

1978 went to school in NY

Created subway drawings on blank ad space

Worked with children

Wanted everyone to be able to have his work

Worked with causes

Died young in 1988

Wanted everyone to make art especially kids

Show Keith Haring’s work

Project: Create a haring like art work with primary colors and shapes

Step1: in pencil: using Geometric shape: Draw  a circle head

Step2: using a square, draw a body

Step 3 using a rectangle draw two arms (show movement)

Step4: using rectangles, draw two legs (show movement) 

Step5: using ovals, draw hands and feet

Step6: Using organic shape, draw around your figure two times

Step7: paint your figure in red

Step8: paint your first organic shape in yellow

Step9: paint your next organic shape in blue

Step10: outline your figure in BLACK

Step11: create at least one set of movement lines 

Materials: 

Brushes

Water

Card stock

Red blue and yellow paint

Black paint

Organic Shape Drawing with Scissors and Matisse

Discussion

Organic Shape? What is organic shape? 

Where do you hear the word organic? 

Where do you find organic shapes? 

Matisse
 Drawing with scissors

He worked very large, we will work smaller

Show his work

What do you think of this piece? Color? Shapes? 

What would you do first if you were inside the artwork? 

Henri Matisse
1869-1954
French Painter,
Studied law until he was 21

Mother gave him a paint box after surgery and he discovered painting

He returned to work, and every morning before work, he attended drawing classes; at lunch time he would paint for an hour or so, and then return to work. After work he would paint till night fell. It was his life. 

In 1891 set off for Paris. 

Matisse began his journey of studies which ultimately lead him to his love of line, shape and color. 

Matisse felt that his greatest influence had been the work of the artist Cezanne (1839 – 1906, French). 

In the 1950‘s, Matisse began creating paintings using paint and paper cut outs. 

In his last years, as he aged and fell ill, Matisse continued to paint, this time on the walls of his room, using a piece of charcoal attached to the end of a bamboo pole. He painted until his death in 1954. 

Matisse had strong feelings about only one thing, the act of painting. 

The purpose of these pictures, he always asserted, was to give pleasure. 

For Matisse, painting was the rhythmic arrangement of line and color on a flat plane. 

He had created the technique of striking contrasts, unmixed hues, flat planes of color (similar to Gauguin, 1848 – 1903, French) 

expressive brush strokes (similar to Van Gogh, 1853 – 1890, Dutch). 

Light was expressed, not in the method of the Impressionists, but with a harmony of intensely covered surfaces. 

PROJECT: Create a matisse style organic shape composition

Step1: glue one large block of color to your white sheet

Step2: glue a second block of color to your white sheet

Step3: begin to cut organic shapes in all colors and glue them to your paper

Step4: create a composition from your random shapes

Step5: pull the piece together by adding smaller pieces in a pattern

Materials: 

Glue stick

Construction paper

Scissors

DISCUSSION: 

Look at the story book Where the Wild Things Are

What shapes do you see

What shapes are spikes and horns made from?

What Lines do you see?

Do you see organic shapes?

Artist:Maurice Bernard Sendak (born June 10, 1928) 

American writer and illustrator of children's literature.  

He is best known for his book, Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.

One of his first professional commissions was to create window displays for the toy store 

F.A.O. Schwarz. 

His illustrations were first published in 1947 in a textbook titled Atomics for the Millions by Dr. Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff. 

He spent much of the 1950s illustrating children's books written by others before beginning to write his own stories.

For additional information, please visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Sendak

PROJECT:

Step1: Using your piece of yarn, lay out and organic shape on your page to begin

Step2: Using Oil Pastels trace the outside of your organic shape. This makes your monsters head

Step3: add 2 geometric shapes for eyes

Step3: add one organic shape for a nose

Step4: add a line for a mouth. WAIT! How does your monster feel? Happy or sad, Angray or confused? This could help make your decision. 

Step5: add two organic shapes for ears

Step4: add 5 geometric shapes for hair

Step5: add spikes, gils, teeth, horns, feathers or any other things you can think of with your black 

Step6: Fill in your geometric/organic monster with colors. 

MATERIALS:

White paper

Black sharpies or oil pastels

Piece of string

All colors of oil pastels

This lesson plan has been adapted from: http://ourartlately.blogspot.com/2011/09/organic-shape-monsters.html

Organic and geometric Repetition Animals with Maija Peeples-Bright

 3 Day Project

Day 1

Take a look at the work: Woodpecker Wimea with Weightlifters

Oil on canvas 1982 by Maija Peeples-Bright

Discussion:

What do you see in this piece

What is repetition

Do you see texture

How many different colors are used

Are the birds always painted the same?

If you can forget for a  moment that they are birds what does the painting look like?

do you see any shapes? what shapes do you see?

What is a shape? Name some

What is an organic shape? Can you name some of those? Where do we see them?

Artist: Maija Peeples-Bright  (1942-)

Maija was born in Riga, Latvia in 1942.  Maija and her parents then moved to Northern California when she was 8

She is known for paintings, prints and ceramic sculptures of zany lovable animals and bright flowers.

She was well into completing her math degree at UC Davis in 1963 when her counselor advised her to take an art class to fulfill general education requirements. 

On her first day in the class, she unknowingly stepped right into the middle of what's known today as the California Funk movement. 

Eventually she ended up palling around with such notables as Robert Arneson, William T. Wiley, Peter VandenBerge, David Gilhooly and Roy DeForest. 

"I was so lucky that Davis was just this hotbed of art at the time that I was there," says Peeples-Bright,    

In 1967, Maija lived in San Francisco in a house she helped paint every color that Dutch Boy produced and called her work "The Rainbow House."  

"I do art in just about everything—my shirts, crochet my blankets. 

Maija studied under Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley and Robert Arneson to gain her Master's in only one year at the University of  Davis.  Maija prefers to isolate herself from the art world and work in her garage studio in Eldorado Hills, California.

Project: over several days and steps create a work inspired by the work of Maija Peoples-Bright

Step1: Blue Tape 1/2 inch border around a large piece of thick paper, tape to a board

Step2: Draw three large geometric shapes the same or different

Step2: Draw three large organic shapes within and around the geometric shapes

Step3: fill in any blank spots with shapes both Geo and organic

Step4: using tempura paints, Paint shapes both organic and geometric of different colors

Materials: 

Thick paper 12x18

tempura paint

pencil

Day 2: 

Discussion: revisit all discussion topics from day 1

Focus on repetition 

Tint: adding white to colors

Value: what is value 

what happens when you add white to colors?

Make Paint: 

Give each student a bowl of different color paint and a brush

add a portion of white to each bowl and have the student create the new colors

Project: 

Step1: using a pencil, choose one shape and fill it in with at least 2 of the same animal

Step2: in another shape, fill it with at least 2 of another animal

Step3: continue on until all shapes are full, some shapes could be filled with only one animal

Step4: put the new paint colors one on each table in the studio.  Have the students move about to the studio to each table to add the new paint colors to the animals

Day 3

revisit the previous two days discussions

Oil Pastels: what are they?

How do we use them?

When and how were they created?

Value: Shade

What happens when you add Black to a color?

Make Paint: 

Give each student a bowl of different color paint and a brush

add a small portion of black to each bowl and have the student create the new colors

Project: 

Step1: using oil pastels add details to your animals

             eyes, scales, contour lines, etc.
Step2: put the new paint colors one on each table in the studio.  Have the students move about to the studio to each new color
Step3: using a q-tip add dots around each original shape


Materials:
Oil pastels
Q-tips
Paint Brushes
Black paint
White Paint
pencils
bowls