Designing Mothers & Fathers Day Cards
Submitted by: Nadia Russ
Title: "Happy Mothers/ Fathers Day!" - 'NeoPopRealist ink & pen pattern drawing greeting cards for all grades
Grades: Grades K-5
Lesson developed by: NeoPopRealism PRESS
Celebrating 25-Year anniversary of NeoPopRealism - 1989-2014
Materials:
- White Card Stock
- Ink pen black 0.7 mm Rollerball
- Colored ink pens (or Colored Markers
- Scissors
Description:
Students will draw greeting cards for Mother's Day or Father's Day using line and repetitive patterns. This lesson plan focuses on the step-by-step building process for creating a balanced composition. This lesson plan was inspired by Nadia RUSS' art and NeoPopRealism drawing. Students will learn new terms, “NeoPopRealism" and "meditative ink pen pattern drawings" and compare it to Realism and other style approaches.
Goals:
Students will learn:
- About NeoPopRealism and the style creator, Nadia Russ
- Students will study the history of Mother's Day or Father's Day.
- Learn to draw NeoPopRealist letters and a heart. Repetitive patterns and imaginative elements will be added to the letters and shapes.
- To createa balanced composition.
Motivation:
In this lesson, you will teach students how to make realistic and imaginative patterns in a Mother's Day or Father's Day greeting card. These will form an original NeoPopRealism ink pen pattern drawing on a small scale with elements of humor. NeoPopRealism is appropriate for students from Kindergarten through elementary, middle and high school. NeoPopRealism greeting cards are also suitable for adults to make.
Display some of Nadia Russ’ art posters/prints in the classroom or show her work online. Have a presentation ready to students. You can find her work in her books including, How to Draw Without Eraser: Children's Guide to the World of NeoPopRealism
NeoPopRealism ink pen/ pattern drawing can be contemplative. Says Russ, "The meditative state of mind is the highest state in which our mind exists." When students draw NeoPopRealism ink patterns, their mind is open for renewal. This art style's creator, Nadia Russ, explains her style as a work from within when an artist expresses his or her inner world. You need no eraser because if a ‘mistake’ is made it would disappear under the repetitive patterns. These patterns would make mistakes invisible.
In 2014, NeoPopRealism is 25! A little bit of history. The Bahamas TV, Channel 13:
Nadia Russ' NeoPopRealist Art Exhibit in 1997:
Also read what newspapers worldwide have written about Nadia Russ' Artwork (click and scroll down in the following website): http://neopoprealismjournal.wikifoundry.com/page/NeoPopRealism
Mother's Day is a celebration honoring mothers and motherhood. It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in March, April or May. Mother's Day is an American invention. It is not directly descended from the many celebrations of mothers and motherhood that have occurred throughout the world over thousands of years, such as the Roman festival of Hilaria, the Greek cult to Cybele, or the Christian Mothering Sunday celebration. Despite this, in some countries Mother's Day has become synonymous with these older traditions.
The modern holiday of Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in America. She began a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the USA. Although she was successful in 1914, she was disappointed with its commercialization by the 1920s. Jarvis' holiday was adopted by other countries and it is now celebrated all over the world. In this tradition, each person offers a gift, card, or remembrance toward their mothers, grandmothers, and/ or maternal figure on mother's day.
Father's Day was inaugurated in the United States in the early 20th century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting. After the success obtained by Anna Jarvis with the promotion of Mother's Day in the US, some wanted to create similar holidays for other family members, and Father's Day was the choice most likely to succeed. Father's Day was founded in Spokane, Washington at the YMCA in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd, who was born in Arkansas. Its first celebration was in the Spokane YMCA on June 19, 1910. Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who raised his six children there. After hearing a sermon about Jarvis' Mother's Day in 1909, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them. Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June. It did not have much success initially. In the 1920s, Dodd stopped promoting the celebration because she was studying in the Art Institute of Chicago, and it faded into relative obscurity, even in Spokane. In the 1930s Dodd returned to Spokane and started promoting the celebration again, raising awareness at a national level. Since 1938 she had the help of the Father's Day Council, founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the commercial promotion. Americans resisted the holiday during a few decades, perceiving it as just an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes. By the mid 1980s the Father's Council wrote that "(...) [Father's Day] has become a 'Second Christmas' for all the men's gift-oriented industries. A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.
In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries on November 19 for men and boys who are not fathers.
Procedure:
Day 1:
1. Introduce Nadia RUSS’ life and the NeoPopRealism style of visual arts to students. Compare Nadia Russ’ ink/pattern pencil drawings with old masters such as Leonardo DaVinci. Discuss how they are similar and different.
2. Explore with students briefly the subject of the Mother's Day or Father's Day and the celebration.
3. Demonstrate how to create a greeting card and how to draw patterned images in the text, "Happy Mother's Day!" or "Happy father's Day!"- NeoPopRealism ink pen / pattern images of letters and a heart - starting with the contour/shapes and ending with the drawing of the repetitive patterns. Demonstrate/ explain how the different repetitive patterns can change an image's character and meaning.
Ask students to draw the realistic part of their greeting card - the letters and a heart "I [love/heart] You!"on a piece of a folded thick paper (see above). Then, ask students to divide the shapes of the images of the letters and heart into sections.
Day 2:
Continue guiding students on the drawing of their greeting cards. Students focus on creating imaginative repetitive patterns, filling them with sections of letters and a heart. Draw repetitive patterns and combine them to bring about the feeling of a balanced composition. When students draw the patterns, they should use their imagination. it is unconscious process. Meditation improves learning ability.
When they finish the drawing process, have students discuss the NeoPopRealism art style and compare their work.
Follow‐up activities:
View Nadia Russ' NeoPopRealism artwork online and discuss the NeoPopRealism ink pen pattern drawing style.
Discuss a few artists who invented new styles of visual arts and were their top representatives:
Monet - Impressionism,
Dali - Surrealism, Picasso - Cubism,
Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns - Pop Art,
Jeff Koons - Neo-Pop,
Nadia Russ - NeoPopRealism.
NeoPopRealism in its core is deep and psychological, it expresses through the artistic medium the human's
feelings and emotions.
RESOURCES:
Fine Art Prints from the NeoPopRealist art by Nadia Russ:
- http://neopoprealism.org
- http://www.neopoprealism.net
*Information on NeoPopRealism ink pen/ pattern drawing, its concept and Nadia Russ, who created this style in 1989, biography: http://neopoprealismblackwhiteink.blogspot.com/
New book for art teachers: NeoPopRealism Ink & Pen Pattern Drawing: 15 Most Popular ART LESSON PLANS
Lesson plans for all grades:
- http://neowhimsies.blogspot.com
- http://neopoprealismartlessonplans.blogspot.com/
- http://neopoprealismelementary.blogspot.com
- http://kindergartenneopoprealism.blogspot.com/
*Nadia Russ' official website: www.nadiaruss.com
NeoPopRealism philosophy for a happier life
1. Be beautiful; (Inside yourself)
2. Be creative & productive; never stop studying & learning;
3. Be peace-loving and positive-minded;
4. Do not accept communism or any other totalitarian philosophy;
5. Be free-minded, do the best you can to move the world to peace and harmony;
6. Be family oriented and self-disciplined;
7. Be free spirited. Follow your dreams, if they are not destructive;
8. Believe in God. Belief in God is harmony and striving for perfection;
9. Be supportive to those in need. Be generous;
10. Create your life as a great adventure.
Background and Historical Information:
Nadia RUSS is a Ukrainian-born Russian painter/ graphic artist living in the USA. She is famous for innovative, creative, NeoPopRealism art and ink pen pattern drawings, the contemplative style that she created in 1989. Instead of realistic images Nadia uses a more abstract style that demands an imagination. Through time her drawings became more symbolic. Although she primarily uses an black ink pen on white paper, she has been known to use blue, gold, or silver ink on black paper.
How did Nadia RUSS develop her unique and original style NeoPopRealism? RUSS had studied classical drawing and composition since she was a child. Through time she became less interested in realism and more in the abstract. Her style was eventually refined and she called the style NeoPopRealism. Her art on canvas usually uses color paints with a combination of sections filled with hot or cold paint colors and patterns.
In 1990, RUSS exhibited her first ink/ pattern drawings in a group exhibition in Moscow’s famous Manege. Later, she was exhibiting her artwork in art galleries. In 1996, she moved to the Freeport, Bahamas, where her artwork gained special brightness. In 2000, she came to the USA where she currently lives. Nadia Russ created the term “NeoPopRealism" on January 4, 2003. That same year, she manifested her new style of visual arts NeoPopRealism internationally. In 2004, she created the NeoPopRealism 10 canons for happier life. In 2006-2007, several US and European museums purchased Nadia Russ’ paintings and drawings and now, these artworks are in the permanent collection of these museums.
