Description

Students from an elementary school in Tampa, Florida visited an exhibition of Keith Haring's work at the local Tampa Museum of Art and then made their own Haring-inspired work!

Objective

To learn about the life and work of Keith Haring.

To engage children with activities and exhibitions from the local museum.

To help children think about symbols and visual language.

To allow students to work collaboratively

Materials

Black paper (small pieces) Black roll of paper (wide) Colored chalk

Procedure

In March 2006, my students studied the life and work of the artist Keith Haring. We first read about the artist in a newspaper article provided by the Tampa Museum of Art. In that article students learned about the Pop Shop and studied some of his more famous images. After that we used black paper and chalk to first draw the barking dog and then many other figures of Keith Haring's.

The next week students watched a short video about Keith Haring called “Drawing the Line.” After that students drew BIG symbols that represented themselves on large paper tacked up in the hallway. We also worked in groups and drew gigantic figures in the parking lot with chalk