Wolf Kahn-Inspired Abstract Landscapes (High School Art Unit)

The Art Problem:
This Creative Challenge invites students to explore mark-making, texture, shape, space, color, abstraction and mood through pastel landscapes inspired by the work of American master, Wolf Kahn. Creating the images on a black ground causes the colors to really "sing" on the paper.

Materials:
Reproductions of Wolf Kahn pastel landscapes

Selection of the students' own or non-copyrighted landscape photographs (I found a large selection of images in the public domain online through the National Park Service "Digital Image Archive." All images are free and may be used without a copyright release. I printed them out 8.5 x 11", put them in clear page protectors, and use them again and again. This is an excellent opportunity to discuss artistic plagiarism.)

Sketchbook or sketch paper
Pencils
Erasers
Black construction paper, black drawing paper or black pastel paper

Masking tape (to mask border of paper)
White charcoal pencils if needed for sketches to show up on black paper

Selection of colored chalk or soft pastels

Prerequisites:
Basic drawing and composition experience

An understanding of and sketchbook practice with mark-making techniques (hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, etc., including students' own inventive marks)

Basic familiarity with color "mixing" and layering with chalk or soft pastels (or just build in a mini-lesson)

Basic understanding of composition and Elements and Principles of Design

Basic familiarity with color "mixing" and layering using chalk or soft pastels

Individual Student Procedures:
1. Introduce the work of Wolf Kahn. You might do this by giving small groups of students a Wolf Kahn reproduction plus a reproduction of a more realistic landscape and asking them to compare/contrast and then share answers with whole class. The point is to help students recognize basic characteristics of Kahn's pastel landscapes: simplified and often geometric shapes, vivid and sometimes non-local color, color registers or bands of color, a general flattening out of form, etc.

2. Follow the above introductory exercise with a second transitional excercise: place a transparency of Kahn's work on a transparency projector and cover it with a clear transparency sheet. Working with student volunteers and 3-4 images in succession, invite each student to quickly trace the basic shapes of the composition with a transparency marker. After each has completed the tracing, remove the transparency of the artwork so that just the student's diagram of the composition remains. Discuss.

3. Share biographical information about Kahn as desired.

4. Spread out photographs around room and ask students to choose their favorite.

5. Next, students create a thumbnail sketch of their image in pencil and colored pencil. Many students will start out to realistic. Keep reminding them that they are trying to capture the "essence" of the place by doing as Kahn did: reducing forms to simple shapes, exaggerating color and shadow, using mark-making strategies to create contrasting textures, etc. Help them layer varied marks of colors to create secondary and intermediate colors instead of blending. Continually remind them that they are not "copying" the image, but "interpreting" it through abstraction.

6. Students then mask the edges of their black paper with masking tape and translate their thumbnails using white charcoal pencils (or anything that will show up on the paper).

7. Finally, they apply color using chalk or soft pastels. When finished, they fix the image with Workable Fixatif and remove their tape for display.

Assessment:

Score and comment on pieces according to the "Sailing the 7 Cs" visual arts rubric

IB-MYP Area of Interaction: Environment

Extension: Challenge students to create a monoprint of their image. After their pastels are finished, lay a piece of plastic wrap over each image to protect them. Then instruct each student to lay a piece of Plexiglas or acetate over his or her image and trace onto it the basic shapes of his or her composition with a greasy pencil like a china marker. Remove the Plexi/acetate and plastic wrap and put the pastel drawing in a safe place. Next students add color to their compositions with either quickly painted on block printing ink or Caran d'ache water soluble oil pastels (other brands seem not to work). Finally, using pressure from their hands, a brayer, a wooden spoon, or a printmaking press, they transfer their images from the Plexi/acetate onto paper (dry paper for damp block printing ink; barely damp paper for water soluble oil pastels).

Artwork Credits (top to bottom): Wolf Kahn; student artists: Marcus J., Maggie D., *Unknown, *Unknown, Heather J., Sarah G., and Aurelie T.

*I last gave this Creative Challenge in 2007-2008 and cannot recall whose pieces those were; my apologies for not labeling these images.

Hook: Sand Animation (Part 2--Final) by Kseniya Simonova from "Ukraine's Got Talent"

As a follow up to my "hook" using "Part 1" of Simonova's performance (see January 13, 2010 post), I showed "Part 2--Final" and asked the following question for students to discuss in small groups, record answers in their sketchbooks, and share with the whole class:

How does this performance compare to "Part 1" in terms of:

1. Subject/content?
2. The artmaking process?
3. Emotion?
4. Role of music?
5. Role of choreography?
6. Anything else?

Again, the students were very insightful in their analysis via comparisons. And, while they felt that this performance did not achieve the same level of power as the first, they were very respectful in how they phrased what they had to say, and they supported their arguments with astute examples.

Hook: Sand Animation, "Part 1," by Kseniya Simonova from "Ukraine's Got Talent"

A colleague emailed me the link to this YouTube video at school and and an artist friend emailed it to me at home. I had saved the first message to look at when I got a chance, but when I received the second message, I decided I needed to check it out right away. Am I ever glad I did! (Note: if the link becomes inactive, just do an internet search of "Kseniya Simonva Sand Animation," but make sure you find the one that begins with her lighting a candle.)

Many of you have probably seen this young artist, Kseniya Simonva's, moving and highly expressionistic tribute to the sacrifices of her countrymen during World War II. A fusion of visual art (drawings made in sand on a light table and projected in real-time onto a large screen), music and choreography, the performance is utterly captivating. Though a very few of my students had seen it, it didn't matter: they were instantly immersed in it again.

All of my students--even a few with "focus issues"--were riveted. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that they were transfixed. You could have heard a pin drop during the entire 8-minute performance in every one of my five classes. (Well, okay, one student with attention deficit issues in one class wasn't completely spell-bound, but...) At the conclusion, the silence lingered; it was almost as if they didn't want to break the spell.

And as much as I hated to be the one to do it, I wanted them to analyze and reflect while their memories were fresh. So, I posed the following four questions to be discussed as a group with answers recorded in their sketchbooks and then shared with the whole class. The depth of their insights--even those of some of my less academic students--was gratifying and heartwarming.

Questions for Small Group (by table) and Whole Class Discussion:

1. What did you find to be the most powerful aspects of this performance?
2. What roles did music play?
3. What role did choreography play?
4. What was the significance of the candle

I hope you'll consider incorporating this short video into your instruction. You won't be sorry.

Freedom from Want--Thanksgiving Hook (High School Art Criticism Mini-Lesson)

Just before the Thanksgiving Holiday, I used these images of "Freedom from Want" by Norman Rockwell as prompts for an art criticism mini-lesson. I simply projected them, provided the following information for note-taking and asked students to work individually or in small groups to answer two questions before we discussed them as a class. I found it to be a simple, quick and effective art criticism "hook," and hope you do too.

Background Information:

Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was a 20th century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States, where Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over more than four decades.

His last painting for the Post was published in 1963, marking the end of a publishing relationship that had included 322 cover paintings. He spent the next 10 years painting for Look magazine, where his work depicted his interests in civil rights, poverty and space exploration.
Many contemporary artists consider his work trite or banal and refer to him as an "illustrator" rather than an "artist" or "painter," as an insult. However, Rockwell referred to himself as an illustrator.

Normal Rockwell created images illustrating The Four Freedoms first published in The Saturday Evening Post. The Office of War Information later issued the series as posters as an incentive for War bond purchasers. Many of these posters are still sold today.

The Four Freedoms are goals famously articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, urged by wife Eleanor Roosevelt and friend Jon Run, on January 6, 1941. In an address also known as the Four Freedoms speech, FDR proposed four points as fundamental freedoms humans "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy:

1. Freedom of speech and expression
2. Freedom of religion
3. Freedom from want
4. Freedom from fear

Source: Wikipedia

Questions:

1) What are all the ways in which Rockwell communicated the concept of "Freedom from Want" in this image?

Make sure students notice details about the room (sparkling appearance, wall paper, artwork, etc.), as well as light quality, the fresh-scrubbed appearance of the family members along with their clothing and their expressions, grand parents presiding, the china/crystal, the crudite, etc. They should also notice that the table isn't laden with food, yet the turkey is enormous.

2) What pictorial strategies did Rockwell use to make us feel like we are a guest who has just walked in to join the feast?

Students should notice that the way the table is cropped makes it appear to extend into our space and that the way the male in the bottom right corner is turned to look makes it seem as though he heard us walk in and has turned to welcome us.