Keith Haring and social justice

I wanted to teach a lesson that bridges art and social justice. I decide to use Keith Haring's work and life as a way to introduce students to art as a political tool. At the beginning of this lesson each student read a biography about Haring's life and work. After each student read the biography they discussed his work in small groups. Then a reporter from each group shared their discussion with the class.  The students then picked three possible topics for their paintings:

Bullying

Community

Friendship

Recycle until my Heart is Old

Caring for Others

Take your baby everywhere!

Hallway display

Moody Trees

This lesson focused on mixing and layering colors in art, the concept that the sky touches the earth, and the idea that an artist can create a mood in a work by the use of color and choice of subject.

Moody trees with oil pastels.

Tangled Line Design

All you need is paper and a Sharpie marker! The art students first drew a continuous overlapping line  Next they then filled each new shape with a pattern of lines. The patterns could be repeated in the design as a long as they were not right next to each other. Some students chose to color over their designs with watercolor markers when they were done. This is an excellent lesson to explore the element of art-line.

Multi- Media Winter Birch Trees

This lesson plan is borrowed from Deep Space Sparkle.  http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2009/03/multi-media-winter-birch-trees/  I introduced this lesson with a study of the color wheel and a focus on warm and cool colors.  The 7th grade students were very excited to use tissue paper and Mod Podge for the background.   They felt it was an unexpected and creative use of materials. The students were also impressed by the layered colors. I bought some very inexpensive brushes at Micheal's that worked perfectly so not to damage my watercolor brushes. They were discarded at the end of the unit. Towards the end of the unit several students asked "Why are we were painting white trees?" It never occurred to me that my students never had seen birch trees before. I quickly googled images of birch trees and they were surprised. The majority of my city kids have never seen a landscape like this.

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