5th grade Keith Haring Figures

5th graders worked REALLY hard on this assignment! I will admit that teaching Keith Haring is a very scary prospect.....at least for me. I don't feel as though I have really nailed the right way to approach it, but the bottom line is, we don't give up! I think that the kids often mistake the simplicity of Haring's figures as something very easy to master. It's quite a learning process. I try to make a point of discussing with them that simple isn't always easier, often times it's harder. I find I really have to "coach" as we go....

The first day we just practiced sketching for a few minutes after viewing a PowerPoint of Haring's work. Once students started to feel comfortable, I handed them a piece of 6x12 art paper and asked them to estimate and section it off into 3 squares. Then the task was to draw one figure as large as possible inside each square.

The next day, we discussed and learned about hue, tint and shade. I had students label each square with one word and then they came to "order" their hue from me in order to paint their drawings.

The next week, we continued learning about color......analogous families were the focus. Students filled out a worksheet in order to help them pick their analogous color family based on the hue they had chosen for the figures. Once those two colors were discovered, they had to come pick out the papers in order to create the background. Tracing with sharpies, smooth cutting and careful gluing finished off the pieces. Most students are still in the midst of going back in and adding energy lines around the figures. I'm pretty impressed with the amount of learning and skill that went into these!!

I'm adding some more pictures....the following classes got VERY creative with the backgrounds!! 

SO PROUD of them!