Tag Archives: name art

Paul Klee Name Art

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Looking for an exciting name art project? How about introducing a famous artist at the same time? Try this Paul Klee-inspired graphic name art project.

Second graders create name art in the style of Paul Klee. Allow 1-2 40 minute classes. Artwork by Tyler.

Start out by introducing artworks by Paul Klee. This project is inspired by his graphic works such as Castle and Sun. WikiPaintings has lots of images of his art. Click here,  here, here, and here to see some of Klee’s other graphic artworks. This is a good time to talk about abstract art.

Materials:

  • Black construction paper, 11″x14″
  • pencils and erasers
  • Oil Pastels (including white)

Students should turn their paper horizontally. They write their names in pencil, using all capital letters. Encourage students to S-T-R-E-T-C-H their letters from the bottom to the top of the paper (note: students with long names may need to draw extra skinny letters, use longer paper, or perhaps use their nicknames).  The letters can touch the left and right sides of the paper AND touch each other: letters such as ‘E’, ‘F’ and ‘K’ look more abstract when drawn in this manner.

After they are pleased with the layout, they trace over their pencil lines in white oil pastel.

Students write their name in white oil pastel, then fill in the spaces with colored pastels.

Next they color in the spaces in their name. Encourage them to use a variety of colors, although it is fine to repeat colors. Students must not color in with black pastels.

Completed second grade art:

Randie

Flynn

Jax

 

Chris

Kian

Show students the completed projects and ask if they can read the artist’s name. Successful artworks are often abstracted to the point it is challenging to see the artist’s name! How does this compare to Klee’s graphic artworks?

This lesson plan was inspired by (or abstracted from!) this fabulous post on the Kids Artists blog.

Enjoy!

Do you have a favorite name art lesson plan for the beginning of the year?

 

Playground Name Art

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Looking for a fun kindergarten project? Try this simple but engaging playground name art project based on the student’s first initial.

Kindergarteners make playground drawings incorporating their first initial. Allow one 40-minute period.

Students turned their first initials into playground equipment.

We talked about all the things we see on the kindergarten playground: ladders, swings, slides, sand, balls, jump ropes, hula hoops, monkey bars etc.

Then we talked about all the extra things we might see on the best playground in the world. Students wanted zip lines, trampolines, water slides, forts and mini trains.

Each child received a paper with a photocopied initial (letters were made on school die-cut machine). They drew with pencil and colored with construction paper crayons.

This kindergartener has a horse in her playground.

 

M for Marcos

This project was inspired by this post on the Art Cart blog.

This would be a nice kindergarten sub plan.

Do you have a favorite name art project for the beginning of the year?

Best of the Fair: Clay

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Everyone loves clay!  I went to the San Diego County Fair in June, and saw three fabulous clay projects in the youth art show.

1. The Golden Horses (Fifth grade and up)

Fifth graders made these horses. I love how the horse is balancing on tail and two legs.

 

These are made with some sort of clay on a wire armature.  I am not sure if it is air dry, polymer or regular ceramic clay. I think polymer clay on a floral wire and foil armature, oven baked and then sprayed gold would work. You could use all those horse calendars as reference photos, plus any model or toy horses if you have them (when I was growing up, some of my horse-crazy friends collected them).

 

Fabulous mane, tail and hooves.

2. Name Art Tile (Fifth grade and up)

Name art tile

 

Do you have a multi-slab clay cutter? I do, and it looks like this was made using two slabs. Gorgeous! Love the combination of incised and overlapping shapes. This would be a project that parents and students would treasure for many years.

3. Multi-Color Coil Bowls

Top view of the bowl

Top view of another bowl

Love the coil feet!

 

I don’t think I can guess all the steps that went into making these bowls. I will add you will have to add and dry those coil feet when the bowl is inverted – otherwise the feet will collapse under the weight of the bowl.

Happy summer!

Want to see more fair projects? Check out this post.

Foil Name Art Relief with Patina

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foil name art relief with patinaName art: what a great idea for the first art project of the school year. The sixth grade recently finished their foil name art reliefs. You can download my foil relief Powerpoint here.

Materials:

  • sturdy cardboard for background
  • foil (I used pre-cut foil Pop-up Sheets and cut my background cardboard a bit smaller than the foil)
  • light cardboard or tagboard  in two colors (I used red and gold)
  • pencils and erasers
  • scissors
  • hole punch
  • glue stick
  • spray glue
  • permanent black marker (I use Marks-A-Lot Large Chisel Tip Permanent Marker)
  • fine steel wool

Days 1-2: Design a two-color relief

We started by layering two colors of light cardboard to create a name art collage. Students could use their name, initials, or nickname. Students used hole punches to add interest to their designs.

It really helps to work with two colors of light cardboard when creating the relief.

Day 3: Cover relief with foil and black marker, buff with steel wool

I had students bring their reliefs outside. I sprayed the cardboard with spray glue, then slapped on a sheet of pre-cut foil. Alternately, you could glue foil to a whole stack of reliefs during your prep time. Or you could let kids cover the relief with glue stick and lay on the foil themselves.

Next, we covered the foil completely with black permanent marker.

Students covered the foil with permanent black marker.

Finally we rubbed off the marker with steel wool to create an attractive patina.

Use fine steel wool.

 

All the students loved this project!  They felt the resulting patina looked like old metal.

Sixth grade examples:

Biana added a basketball, hoop, and her jersey number to her name art relief.

Grace used a heart shape hole punch to add interest to her design. Jonah added layered geometric shapes.

Extensions:

After their reliefs were complete, students did crayon rubbings of their name art. Some did rubbings of their friends’ art on large tag board and used it to create their portfolios.

Want more name art ideas? Check out my other name art posts:

Enjoy!

Do you have a favorite name art project for the beginning of the year?

 NOTE: Post update 1/3/14

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