Stained Glass

(sorry, this is a picture of my dumb sample! I'll update it with kids' work as soon as I have pictures)

Another good December project. This is inspired by the stained glass that Matisse designed.

Materials: transparency paper (cut in half), tissue paper, elmer's glue (watered down by half), sponge brushes, scissors, and optional sharpies

Discussion: Using this slideshow, pass the first slide and focus on the second which is an image of a rose window designed by Matisse for a small chapel in NY (the other windows in the church are designed by Chagall - check it out! It's gorgeous). Use the VTS discussion questions to open your discussion: What do you see? What makes you say that? What more can you find? Depending on the kids ages, you could deepen the discussion by asking about: pattern and design - is there repetition? What does that contribute to the piece? Color - how does that affect the piece? Symbols - what do you think Matisse was trying to say? Materials - how does Matisse's use of glass affect the way this piece feels?

Activity: Have the kids think of a shape that has meaning to them - like a personal symbol - and have them cut it out using a piece of tissue paper. Set aside. Have the kids then cut smaller pieces for their backgrounds (if the kids are in the younger grades, I'd pre-cut these for sure). Cover the transparency with watered-down glue using the sponge brush and then have the kids go to town laying in their designs. If you have time for their pieces to dry you could have them trace over the edges with sharpie to simulate metal tracery like in the windows but that might be tricky, time-wise (I'll probably skip that when I do it).

Rose Window with Markers

(sorry for the blurry pic)

This is a nice project to do in December as it is festive and wintery, yet you can still have a substantive discussion about an important bit of architectural art history, rose windows.

Materials: coffee filters, markers (ones that are water-soluble, so anything in our closet OTHER than the colored sharpies), black construction paper, scissors, glue stick, and a spray bottle filled with water

Background information:
This slide show has a picture of 2 rose windows. The first is a picture of the rose window in the Strasbourg Cathedral in Austria and is better suited for this lesson since it has more complicated metal work which is more like the effect the kids will create with the black construction paper & scissors. (We have another stained glass lesson which uses the Matisse window, the second slide, as its visual and I just stuck them in the same slide show for convenience).

(rose window from Strasbourg Cathedral)

I'd open the discussion using the Visual Teaching Strategy questions: 1. What do you see? 2. What makes you say that? 3. What more can you find?

{Things you may want to pull out from the kids, depending on their age: the idea of symbols. What do you think the designer of the window was trying to say? Do you think that the context of this piece of art, a church, has anything to do with that? Pattern and design: do you see repetition in the design? Why do you think the artist might repeat the design over and over? How do the artist's choice of materials (glass, metal), affect the final product of the art? (How is a window different than a painting, for example? A window requires light in order to see it…How could that be a symbol inside of a church?)}
It would probably be a good idea to read up a bit on rose windows so you have a framework for leading the discussion (here's a quick article from wikipedia).

Activity:

Have the kids make a pattern on the coffee filter with the markers, and then spray the decorated filter with the spray bottle to see the colors blend together. OR you can spray first and the kids can decorate the filters wet. It's totally up to you. The difference is that they can make a more precise drawing with it dried but it doesn't really matter because either way it will end up kind of blurry and abstract.

While that dries, have the kids fold their black construction paper into 8'ths, and then cut into it to make a geometric snowflake-ish kind of thing. Unfold, glue the coffee filter (which has hopefully dried by now :) ) to it, and then have the kids cut the black paper so it matches the coffee filter.

Hokusai: lines and patterns

materials:
sharpies
colored markers
paper

Artist Background:
Hokusai was one of the great Japanese woodblock print artists. We watched this really great animated video from youtube here about the life of Hokusai (I used the ladybug to project it off my iphone screen. It would have been better if I brought in my speakers, though). **NOTE ABOUT THE YOUTUBE VIDEO: stop before the credits! There's lots of sumo wrestler butt cheek. It's totally innocent but might be distracting for the kids :)

After the movie, I brought up a picture of his famous The Great Wave woodblock (pictured at top), and we talked about how it's divided into sections: the background, which is plain, and then the waves themselves. Here is the 2-slide slideshow I used. The second slide I am so sorry to say is an image I found on pinterest and have not been able to track it back to the original artist, so there is no artist credit... but we used his/her interpretation of this work as our inspiration, dividing the waves into sections and filling each with different patterns.

How: have the kids look at the Great Wave woodblock and begin drawing waves on their paper. (It helps to show them on the board how to just start, drawing a great big wave across the middle.) Then from there, they can sub-divide that wave and even throw in a mountain (Hokusai's is Mt. Fuji) or volcano... Once they have waves, they can then fill them in with whatever patterns they like. You might want to have some kids come up to the board and share a pattern...