Surrealistic Animal in Watercolor Landscape
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Dali’s Swans Reflecting Elephants and discuss Surrealism, a combination of Realism and Abstraction. They identify the way animals are transformed using line and color, learn about Dali and how his background affected the kind of paintings he created, and use line and color to combine fantasy animals with impossible backgrounds. They practice sketching animal shapes and features and use oil pastels in surrealistic watercolor landscapes.

Wire Figure
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Bellow’s Dempsey and Firpo and his techniques for showing action. They identify how Bellows used color and contrast to create an exciting mood, describe how diagonal line and contrasting color show movement, and identify viewpoint, proportion, and scale. They practice sketching contour figures, and sculpt wire figures in action poses to show movement through the use of strong diagonal and curving lines.

Watercolor Abstract Landscape
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park No. 54 and identify the bird’s-eye view, vertical and horizontal lines, and analogous colors. They mix colors and paint washes with watercolors to show mood, draw abstract landscapes as seen from a bird’s-eye view, using geometric shapes to design a balanced composition, and paint abstract landscapes in the style of Diebenkorn.

Tempera Portrait
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze the use of color, shape, line, and form in Picasso’s Weeping Woman and in real faces. They discuss the way Picasso used color contrast as emphasis in this portrait, learn about Picasso and his use of abstract and Cubist characteristics, and identify pairs of complementary colors and describe how Picasso used them to communicate an idea or mood. They draw profiles and frontal faces in proportion and paint Cubist portraits using complementary colors in original compositions to show contrast and emphasis.

Oil Pastel Drawing
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Demuth’s Figure Five in Gold and discuss how it illustrates The Great Figure, a poem by William Carlos Williams. They identify the use of color, shape, line, and space in Figure Five in Gold and describe the way repetition creates rhythm and movement. They design compositions based on shapes of numbers; and color the composition to show rhythm and unity.

Printed and Collage Interior Design
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Matisse’s Interior with Aubergines and his confusing use of space. They identify organic and geometric shapes and patterns and describe color contrast and the contrast between 3-D and 2-D objects. They design 3-D rooms with patterned walls and floors, practice sketching organic and geometric shapes, print organic and geometric patterns, and create still lifes with 2-D objects.

Chalk Pastel Animals
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Marc’s painting, Two Cats, blue and yellow, and the way he used size to show distance. They identify moods created by color and how highlights and shadows create form. They describe the way Marc used color to create abstract compositions, pratice sketching expressionistic cats from geometric shapes, blend colors using chalk pastel, and create highlights and shadows to show form.

Clay Figure
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Rodin’s The Thinker and his techniques for showing motion and emotion. They identify the qualities that make a sculpture 3-D, describe the texture of the surface of the figure, and identify scale and proportions in the figure. They practice sketching contours of figures in action positions and sculpt figures from clay using additive and subtractive techniques.

Oil Pastel and Tempera Mission Mural
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Rivera’s The Zapotec Civilization and discuss its social commentary. They identify the activities of the artists in the mura and describe how Rivera depicted a peaceful society by using similar colors, stylized figures, and simple shapes to unify the composition. They practice sketching and planning mural scenes, and they draw and paint a collaborative mural depicting scenes of mission life, using simple figures and muted colors.

Oil Pastel and Watercolor Flower
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze O’Keeffe’s Poppies and the way she used color and shading to show form. They identify the use of color, shape, line, texture, value, and form in Poppies and in real flowers and shells, describe the way tints and shades create the illusion of form, and describe the way contrasting colors add emphasis and show radical symmetry. They practice sketching and coloring enlarged or exaggerated flowers or shells, blending oil pastels to create new colors and to change values to add form, and they paint contrasting backgrounds in complementary colors using watercolors.

Charcoal Transfer and Tempera Painting
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Thiebaud’s Cake Counter and discuss how geometric shapes have been abstracted and how the impasto technique adds realism. They identify the use of line, color, shape, texture, and form in Cake Counter, describe how positive shapes and negative spaces are used in it, and identify the repetition of shape and color. They find colors in shadows, practice sketching objects with simple repeated shapes, transfer charcoal images of their own design in a series, and paint the objects with tinted colors, adding colored shadows.

Watercolor Optical Illusion
Fourth Grade Artist

Students analyze Vasarely’s Tridem K and his tricks for optical illusions. They identify the way shapes and colors create optical illusions, describe why cubes with three faces appear to be 3-D, and practice sketching 3-D cubes. They paint Op Art geometric design showing optical illusions.