We read the book "Action Jackson" to help with some background on the artist. I do love this book because it talks the kids through his whole process. It makes them see that there really is more thought in the process then just "flinging paint" in the general direction of the canvas. When questioned at the second day of the project my students were able to remember lots of things about Pollock and his working process. It was really gratifying to see.
After the book, we smocked up, newspapered the entire table, got a brush, a 12 x 18 white paper and wrote our names on the back of the paper. I did a demonstration of how to use the brush to splatter without making a completely terrible mess. Everyone was cautioned about overhand or overhead paint flinging - that was not allowed! Instead, I showed them how to swing the brush in a circle over the paper and how to tap the brush with one hand while holding it lightly with the other. This creates controlled splatters so it hits the paper and not - well, everything else. We still had some overenthusiastic clothes casualties, but that's why we also had smocks.
So Day 1 was just painting with the watered down black tempera. We did talk about "balancing" our splatters - not having too much in one area and not enough in another.
Day 2 was where we switched it up a bit. Students were instructed to get a turquoise paper, a green paper, glue stick, and scissors before going back to their seats when they came in. We used 12 x 18 for the turquoise and 9 x 12 for the green.
When I called them over for the demonstration I explained that once Pollock's paintings were dry he just put them on display - but we were going to do something a bit different. We were going to turn our paintings into something.
First, we drew a zigzag line down the middle of the green and cut. This created the two layers of grass. We only glued the bottoms not the sharp tips of the grass. One the backs of the splatter paintings we drew a circle for the head, oval for the body, two ears, and a half a crescent for the tail. After cutting out the shapes we inserted the body between the grass layers (which neatly covers the feet removing the need to make them), and glued down all the big parts. The smaller pieces for eyes, nose, tongue, collar, and dog tag came from the scrap box. Most students finished in just this class. There were a handful however, that needed an extra half a class during the next session.
Here are some of the finished puppies:
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