Over and Above Portraits

 In a search for a lesson for fifth grade that involved an American artist, portraits, and personal voice I found this one about the artist Clarence Carter (1904-2000). http://learn.michenerartmuseum.org/2011/02/an-over-and-above-lesson-for-students/

I had never heard of Clarence Carter (the watercolor artist) and thought his over and above paintings where interesting.

Over and Above by Clarence Carter

 I used the lesson from the above website and changed it a bit. We first looked at a few of his Over and Above paintings on the smart board and discussed. I later revealed his inspiration for these.  More info about Carter look here, http://clevelandartsprize.org/awardees/clarence_carter.html

 Each student was to draw a self portrait of themselves peering over a wall. We used mirrors, pencils and sharpies. For the color I gave them a choice, oil pastel, marker, color pencils, watercolor, crayons or a combination of several. 

First however we discussed the pro and cons of each. I wrote those on the board. 

• Ex, oil pastels are bright and colorful and resist water color. However not a lot of color choices with those and they smear. 
• Markers are also bright and colorful, but they bleed when used with watercolor. 
• Color pencils can be used different ways, light or dark. However they involve a lot of sharpening. 

So with this they made there own choices for color. They loved this!

On a separate day we looked quickly at the work of Fred Babb and how he uses words for inspiration and his own voice in his work. Student were to use their own personal voice and write a quote about art, music, life, etc. I had a sheet with several examples of my favorite quotes, and of course they could write their own (which several did) 

 This lesson was a total success and involved so many objectives from my fifth grade art curriculum.
Next time I will encourage them to draw their heads bigger, write bigger and bolder, and keep the bottom of the paper cleaner. However it was hard to do with pastels and water color.

 I love her background!