Description

Students will create images of the sky that convey their moods and feelings.

Objective

Skills:
Depending on available supplies, students will be using either craypas or tissue paper.

Attitudes:
Students will learn that in art, colors do not have to be literal.

Resources

Van Gogh art work

Materials

Newspaper (to cover tables)
Paper
Tissue paper or Craypas
Glue (for tissue paper)
Glue brushes

Procedure

Questions:
1. When you look up at the sky, what do you see?
2. Does the sky change the way it looks at different times of the day? At different times of the year? From different places? How?
3. What kinds of colors do you see? What kind of shapes? Textures?
4. What kinds of moods can the sky convey?

Procedure:
1. Discuss feelings as moods and emotions. Look at some artwork that contains images of the sky. Discuss how the artists were feeling a certain way and when they made artwork, their emotions came out (if an artist is sad, their painting may make you feel sad). One way an artist can express mood is through color.

2. Discuss the Sky. Where they are when they look up into the sky (the park, the playground, the rooftop). Discuss with the students what shapes and colors they see.

3. Explain assignment: That students will paint a sky of their choice that will express a mood or feeling, using craypas or tissue paper.
Craypas: smearing and blending areas of color, working with line, removing color by scratching, transferring by rubbing.
Tissue Paper: ripping and layering colored tissue paper to creat different looks, using tissue paper to create a 3-D effect.

4. Demonstrate how the materials are going to be used (either craypas or tissue paper).

Summary:
If time allows, students will share their skies with the class. The students can also share what mood they portrayed in the work.

Extensions

The auther of this lesson, Melissa Ludwig, a student of the School of Visual Arts in NYC, is the 2001-2002 scholarship recipient of the Keith Haring Scholarship award. This project was a collaboration with The School of Visual Arts & PS 3 in New York City

To find out more about The Keith Haring Foundation Scholarship offered through the School of Visual Arts, please contact:
Director, School of Visual Arts/Visual Arts Foundation, 15 Gramercy Park South, NYC 10003.

SVA's web site