Cubism, Craypas, and Gel Pen Patterns

Cubism

7th and 8th Grade

After looking at the movement of Cubism in the art world, we focused on two artists, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. We studied their cubistic techniques and tried to incorporate them into our own pastel work. These are large 18x24 inch (45.7 x 61 cm) works. We also learned how to blend with the medium of Pastels. I set up a still life in the middle of the room for students to lightly draw and then distort the images.

Cray-Pas

7th/8th Grade

The medium of Cray-Pas was used to create these lovely designs below. The initial design was started from a very small triangle of colored magazine page approximately 1x1x1 inch (2.5x2.5x2.5 cm).

Students glued this triangle somewhere on their paper as a point of departure and the design continued out from this source. Emphasis was placed on the ability of the Cray-Pas to blend naturally and smoothly to allow good color flow. The students enjoyed the freedom of working with non-objective subject matter and relying only on color, line, pattern, rhythm, and shape to carry their design to completion.

Gel Pen Patterns

7th/8th Grade

Gel Pens are always a favorite pastime for our middle school students so we decided we'd take it one step further and turn our gel pen doodling into a project. We spent some quality time looking at California artist Sharon Silver's gel pen work on her website and discussing her work. We then designed our own patterns and color balance in our work. Students had a choice of working small or large on black Construction Paper. Later we attached each artwork to Mat board. Some of our nice work shows here.

After finishing our artwork, we made small easels out of tongue depressors or Popsicle sticks which fit perfectly with our finished designs (see example of easels on the quilling page).

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