Trends Modern Art

When I lived in East L.A., I would often hang out in South Pasadena. The beautiful Norton Simon Museum of Art is right off of Colorado Blvd. and it was a frequent destination of mine. They have an Amedeo Modigliani in their permanent collection. His elogated portraits of women with deep, soulful colors never ceased to fascinate me.

I knew that I would have to give the students clear instructions on how to lay out their portrait, to give them the look I was going for. So what I did was take a ruler and drew a few quick dotted lines to direct the little artists so they could have a few guidelines as to where they should draw their head and neck, to give it the full elongated effect. While in class, this proved to be a huge timesaver (we only have 45 minutes to complete the project) and left us with plenty of time to sketch and color.

• Pass out black 9 X 12 construction paper or black drawing paper.
• Instruct the students to draw their head in the top half of the page, which should be 3/4 down from the top. The chin should be right on the dotted line. This will insure that their portrait has that long quality.
• Once the children have sketched their head and neck, instruct them to complete all of their features. I gave them the choice of drawing themselves or another person they knew.
• Give students oil pastels (woooo--I'm really getting serious use of those oil pastels) and have them color their portraits til their heart's content.
• Encourage students to color the background as well, to give it another dimension.

The artwork above was created by a second grader.

Paul Klee was considered a primitive artist, yet he had the admiration of many of the modern art masters such as Pablo Picasso. It is hard to put him into any art movement, since he was inspired by Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism.

Klee was so passionate about color, that he taught color theory at the Bauhaus. He said, ""Colour has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has hold of me forever... Colour and I are one. I am a painter."

We decided to do our own interpretation of his "Head of a Man", using vivid tissue paper instead of paint. There were some glitches along the way...the tissue paper didn't bleed when painted with water like I had planned while I created the sample. So I just used watered down matte medium.

• Pass out 9X12 Bristol board, poster board or watercolor paper and a round cardboard template.
• With a black oil pastel, allow students to trace the round template which will be the head of the man. Draw shoulders, too. Features can also be lightly sketched.
  
• Let students either cut out or tear shapes from multicolored tissue paper. We discovered the gold and silver would not stay down on the paper, even after it was brushed with matte medium.
• Students can begin laying down tissue paper in interesting shapes by brushing it with watered down matte medium.
• After it is completely dry, have students trace over their drawing with black oil pastel again, to give it a stronger color and presence.
  

The artwork above was created by an 8th grader.