1st grade Numbers like Jasper Johns

These multi-media beauties were created over a two week time period with my first graders. The textural quality is really astounding, especially in person. The original idea for this assignment was found at the blog, Laugh, Paint, Create! 

During the first session, students painted two pieces of paper. For the first paper, they were given the primary colors and were encouraged to be scientists, experimenting to make colors to fill the paper.  While painting the second sheet, I added black and white to the mix so they could practice making tints and shades. 

During the second session, we looked at several Jasper Johns pieces and talked about the characteristics of his work and the subject matter. I gave each student a page from an old book and asked them to rip them into free-form shapes and glue down on top of one of the paintings from the previous week. Then they painted those book page pieces using tempera cakes. The final step was cutting out the numbers that I had pre-traced on the back of each student's second painting (the numbers had to be traced backwards so that when flipped to the painted side would read correctly). We added white outlines using oil pastel after everything was dry the next week.