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Art & Math Design
Submitted by: Lin Altman, Cedar
Creek Elementary
Unit: Design - Art/Math Integration
Project: The Number 5 - Marker design
Grade Level: Elementary (this is second grade)
Objective:
Second grade students learned about the artist Charles Demuth while they studied warm and cool colors. Integration of math and art.
Materials:
Numbers art prints, 9" x 12" (23 x 30 cm) white Drawing Paper
Procedure:
Make large number on paper. Add smaller numbers in background (repetition) and geometric shapes. Break up negative space with line (use rulers if desired). Color numbers and small geometric shapes mainly with warm colors, negative space mainly with cool colors. Critique work. See the example above.
Pastel Number Design
Presented by: Colleen Hodel Cudahy, Wisconsin
Unit: Integrated Art
and Math lesson
Lesson: Pastel number design and Number sentencing
Grade Level: First grade (adaptable to other grades)
Goal:
Students will successfully create an artwork in pastel and add a string of eight one-digit numbers.
Objectives:
Students will learn about artists who used numerals in their work, experience chalk pastels as an art medium, and work with adding in number sentences. They will learn about positive and negative space, review warm and cool colors, review the concept of overlapping, and learn how to use stencils (maintaining their own unique artistic styles!)
Procedures:
I. Introduce pastels; discussing the safe disposal of chalk dust and importance of not blowing it across the table for others to breathe.
II. Allow the students to experiment with the different ways they can be used. Teach the students how to clean up the workspace and themselves after using messy Pastels
III. Show and discuss artworks that use numbers as design motifs.
IV. Introduce positive and negative space. Studying Nine by Jasper Johns, note the ambiguity between the positive space of the numbers and the negative space around them.
V. Review concepts of overlapping, warm, and cool colors.
VI. Demonstrate the use of stencils. Students need to hold down the stencil with one hand, while coloring within or around the number shape. Encourage them to blend two colors on each number. Students should overlap numbers in some places. Students can use different techniques that they discovered while experimenting during the first session. They should remember not to use opposite colors if they do not want brownish colors. A good way for students to end up with bright colors is for them to blend warm colors with warm colors and cool with cool.
VII. All students will make EIGHT numbers on their artworks. This will ensure that they all have enough numbers to make a good design. Using eight will also result in four initial number sentences per student (i.e. 2+5=7), thus easing the process of teaching adding using number sentences.
VIII. Give each student a piece of paper to note the numbers as they are added to his or her artwork. I handed out folded "detective notebooks" for them to secretly write the numbers they used. This motivation helped them to remember to write the numbers. Through overlapping, sometimes the numbers can be obscured and hard to find later. The students will bring their detective notebook back to the classroom to "crack the code," adding the numbers to discover their "secret number", which shall later become the title of their artwork.
IX. When students have eight positive or negative numbers overlapping on their work, begin a dialogue about what can be done to color the background without losing the brightly colored numbers. Afterward, allow the students to choose a way to color their background.
X. In conclusion, the students will bring their sum, the "secret number" title, back to art class. They will create a signed title card to be attached to their artwork.
XI. Discuss and reflect on learning by discussing ways students can make stencils on their own. Talk about how they are used by artists and others to mass-produce artwork and literature. Stencils are often used for sign making, when letters or numbers must be all the exact same size and font. Review Pop Art. The artists we studied used numbers as familiar everyday motifs, objects within which they could focus on the movement of paint, as we focused on the movement of pastel color within our numbers. This dialogue can take place intermittently while the students are working during each session.
Motivation:
To teach students art history and motivate their interest in using numbers to create their own art, we discussed several artworks:
Charles Demuth (Figure 5 in Gold)
(Also read the poem that inspired it, The Great Figure)
Jasper Johns – 0 Through 9
Jasper Johns – Figure 5 http://www.centrepompidou.fr/images/oeuvres/XL/3I00562.jpg
Robert Indiana – Numbers http://www.gallerybrown.com/indiana/numbers.htm
Robert Indiana – The X-5
Learn more about Charles Demuth http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/demuth_charles.html
Learn more about Robert Indiana http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/indiana_robert.html
Learn more about Jasper Johns http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/johns_jasper.html
Before starting their projects, students had the opportunity to experiment with the use of chalk pastels. They tried using the ends and the sides, making different kinds of marks, and blending colors. This also gave them experience with the smudginess of pastels, so they could try to minimize smears and fingerprints on their work.
Materials:
12"x18" (30 x 46 cm) white Drawing Paper
Stencils - positive and negative for numbers 0-9 (I used the Dye Machine by Ellison
to cut a generous supply of approximately 5"x 6" (13 x 15 cm) Poster Board
numbers, saving both the "scrap" and the cut numbers)
Colorful chalk Pastels
Fixative
Drawing Pencils
Newspaper to collect chalk dust
Unifix Cubes
for adding number sentences
Fine art examples using numbers Williams poem that inspired Demuth’s painting:
numbers, saving both the "scrap" and the cut numbers)The Great Figure by William Carlos Williams
Among the rain and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city
Sharing Reflection Questions:
Have some of you drawn outside with Sidewalk Chalk
? (Most have) What can you do with the chalk? (Draw lines and shapes, color things in, mix colors, add water and stroke with a paintbrush…)
What happens to your hands and clothes when you use sidewalk chalk? (They get messy from holding the chalk and kneeling or sitting on the pictures smudges them and gets our pants dirty)
What might happen to the dust that forms in and around your drawings when a gust of wind blows? (The dust blows away)
What happens when you overlap things in your artwork? (Part of one thing is hidden behind another)
What similarities do you notice in these artworks? (They all have repeating numbers, they all have bright colors) What differences? (Some of the numbers have clean edges/some blend into the background, some are numbers only/some have other shapes and lines in them too...)
When you use pastels, it is not a good idea to blow the dust off your work. How could you prevent the dust from being blown up into the air? (Shake the paper off into the garbage or tap it onto a scrap paper)
When you experiment with your chalk, what happens when you mix two colors together? (New colors are created) Can you find some combinations that make bright colors? (Red and blue=violet, green and yellow=yellow-green, magenta and purple=red-violet…) Which color combinations make less vibrant colors? (Blended opposites make grayish browns, white chalk blended with colors lightens them)
Have you found some different ways to use the pastels on your paper? (Use the end of the chalk, use the side, press hard, press lightly, blend colors with the chalks, blend with my fingers...)
How could you use the stencils to create numbers on your artwork? (Color with the end or the side of the chalk inside or outside the stencils, trace a line around the edge...)
How can we color the background without taking attention from the numbers or making them disappear (Use different colors that we haven’t already used, color the background lightly, blend the background colors with white to lighten them...)
Evaluation:
After one of the teachers in our class posed the question of how to effectively use art to teach math to second grade students, I decided to challenge myself to create a lesson that would meet both of our needs. I wanted to introduce my first grade students to a new medium. They have not used chalk pastels with me before. Although they can be incredibly messy, it is important to give the children experiences with many art materials. Using stencils is also new to them. Some might fear that stencils will cause the students create identical works of art; however, this is not the case. The stencils are only used as tools to help students make block numbers on a large scale. They can be filled in with an endless variety of pastel colors and types of strokes.
I engaged the help of the first grade teachers for part of the math lesson. Initially the classroom teachers hesitated to challenge the students to add a string of eight numbers. Together we brainstormed ways to do this without frustration. We knew that the students could add using two number sentences, but eight numbers would be tough. I suggested that they start with four two number sentences, then make new sentences from the sums. However, this would mean working with two-digit numbers. The teachers were not quite ready to start that with the students, but agreed to try. Eventually we arrived at the idea of using Unifix cubes as manipulatives for the students to count out the number sentences. That way they could count out the blocks to find the sum of all eight numbers. To give their addition more purpose and meaning, the final sum becomes the title of each student’s artwork. They will write their title and sign their name on a small slip of paper to be displayed with the piece.
In evaluating this lesson, I think it might be practical for second grade as well. Many first grade students are a bit young to use the pastels very successfully. Initially I had chosen first grade because I thought the math part was too easy for second grade. I thought the first grades would benefit more from the practice with learning the shapes of the numbers. The lesson worked for my first grades, but would be perfect for a first-second grade split class.
Extensions:
Use chalk dust to experiment with paper marbling. Float chalk dust on the surface of the water – swirl – than lay paper on to make a print. Write poetry expressing action as Williams did in The Great Figure. Assemble the poems into a book. Make a class collage from the marbled papers. From the collage, fashion a book cover for the class poetry book.
Resources
Charles Demuth (Figure 5 in Gold) Art Poster Print
Jasper Johns: The Business of the Eye
X-5, Art Poster by Robert Indiana
Robert Indiana: The Artist and His Work 1955 - 2005
Robert Indiana and the Star of Hope
