Graffiti Names...ooh, Edgy!

Here in southern NH we aren't exactly urban or edgy. Our town is more "quaint" and "quiet" and is best known for its Colonial feel. Graffiti can be seen here and there, but it is looked upon as vandalism. Probably for a couple of reasons: 1. It appears in inappropriate places such as on street signs and, 2. For the most part, it isn't very good...Sorry!

I am not crazy about the swear words or anatomy lessons that sometimes appear on the underpasses. It's always lovely to have your emerging reader sounding out four letter words he has seen as you make the trip to Grandma's house! That's not the kind of graffiti I'm talking about. I'm talking about the artform in which artists use spray paint to create images and lettering in a colorful, concise way in a public setting. This is a type of artwork I cannot do (at least in spray paint), but I highly admire. The colors are out-of-this world! The way the artists combine text and image is amazing and creative. So, I needed to do this with my kiddos and see what they could come up with.

This student is in 3rd grade.

I did this project with students in 2nd-4th grade and then again with 5th-8th graders and both groups of students took to the project easily. I love the creative results and would highly recommend this project! A site that I found VERY helpful when planning the project was www.graffitidiplomacy.com--lots of visuals and handouts and how-to's. Another great take on this project can be seen at Art Room With a View. Danielle's 7th graders created graffiti tags but then went above and beyond with the backgrounds--you have to go check those out!

Graffiti Names

Supplies Needed:

• Lettering Sheets (examples of the alphabet in different styles of graffiti--bubble, tag, etc.)
• White copy paper
• Pencils with erasers
• Sharpies (I had fine point and ultra fine on hand)
• Colored pencils
• Scissors
• Glue sticks
• Print-out of a photo of a brick wall

Directions:

1. Choose a word, nickname, or your name to use for your tag and sketch out a few ideas for your tag. 

2. Choose a font for your tag. Are you going to use bubble letters or a more edgy, linear font? Draw or trace the letters for your tag on the white copy paper.

3. Thicken the letters in your tag, if desired, and then retrace your letters so that they touch one another.

4. Make your letters 3D, if desired.

5. Add "bits" such as shiny highlights on the letters, a crown, hearts, bubbles, or arrows.

6. Add a "forcefield," or two to hold it all together. The forcefield is the cloud around the letters.

7. Ink pencil lines with Sharpie. Erase any extra pencil lines.

8. Add color with colored pencils. Colors can be bright, you can use complementary color combinations for "pop," the letters should be different than the forcefield for readability, use effects such as gradients, textures, patterns, etc. 

9. Cut out the finished tag. Glue to the printout of the brick wall with a glue stick. Re-outline the tag with Sharpie, if necessary.

Have fun with this artform and make it yours! Don't worry if your first try isn't exactly perfect--just try again! Try using your tag as your homescreen on your phone or iPod or putting it in a tee-shirt. So cool!

This student is in 5th grade. 

This student is in 5th grade.

This student is in 2nd grade.

This student is in 7th grade.

This student is in 5th grade.

This student is in 3rd grade.

This student is in 2nd grade.

This student is in 2nd grade.

This student is in 2nd grade.

This student is in 5th grade.

Kandinsky Mixed Media Study

This past week was the beginning of semester 2 of Modern Art with my homeschool kiddos. I began with a great little get-to-know-you project I've posted before where the students move about to four different stations experimenting with different media and making color study pictures like Russian painter, Wassily Kandinsky. The students were required to make four squares (one in colored pencil, one in marker, one in collage and one with watercolor resist), but a few had time to complete 6 squares.

Here's the original post on the how-to of doing this projects with the four stations.

Enjoy!

Mini Hand Drawing With Pattern & Ribbon

Well, here's another project I saw on Pinterest only to follow the link to nowhere. If you know where this came from, let me know so I can give credit where credit is due! When I originally saw this project I thought it would be great for my 13-year-old private art student. It was, but I also modified it and had my 9-year-old student do it as well. Here are my notes and method:

This is a lovely project that encompasses a variety of art concepts: inking patterns, drawing hands, shading with colored pencils, depth, positive and negative space, and value (in the ribbon and in the patterns). But, in order to make it manageable, I suggest only drawing one hand on an oversize index card. This keeps the size relatively small and you should be able to actually get the piece done at some point. My 13-year-old student used a large piece of paper (maybe 11" x 14"?) and had two hands in the composition and divided up the space with lots of ribbons and she worked on it for over three weeks (each an hour long session) and it was only about 1/3 of the way done. It got to be pretty tedious for her, I think.

With this smaller format, you get all of the fun and it is just enough to keep it interesting. Here's how we did it:

Mini Hand Drawing With Pattern & Ribbon

Supplies Needed:

• Oversize (6" x 9") white index card, blank (or card stock)
• Pencil with eraser
• Sharpies (fine and ultra fine tips)
• Colored pencils, assorted colors

Directions:

1. Place the hand you don't draw with onto the index card. You can make the hand go off the page a bit, but extend your fingers so that the space around your hand is broken up a bit by your fingers. Trace your hand with pencil.

2. Move your hand off of the paper and use it as a model to fill in some of the details of the hand you traced on your paper. Add wrinkles, rings, bracelets and fingernails. Don't add too many wrinkles though!

3. Draw a ribbon curling around your hand or through fingers and take care to have the ribbon divide up the negative space in your piece. Make it interesting!

4. Erase the lines of your fingers where the ribbon overlaps them. You'll want to take a minute and really make sure that your lines make sense--you don't want to ink something that shouldn't be there!

5. Trace the hand and the details on your hand with the ultra fine point Sharpie. Also trace the ribbon with the Sharpie.

6. Use your pencil to draw different patterns in the different sections of the background. Patterns can be made of lines, dots, squares, triangles, zig zags, and more!

7. Once you have your patterns down, ink them in with the Sharpies.

8. Erase all pencil lines.

9. Use the colored pencils to add color to the ribbons. Once you've built up nice layers of color, use darker colors in areas to create shadows.

My 9-year-old art student created her piece in two one-hour sessions. I'd think that this would take 3-4 regular class sessions if you were doing this project in a classroom setting.