Frida's Parrot

Image by libbyrosof via Flickr

This little project based on Frida Kahlo's Still Life with Parrot was fun, but heartbreaking at the end.......(Heartbreaking is me being overly-dramatic, but sometimes my heart just sinks when I feel I missed an opportunity to encourage a child's artistic expression.)
Usually I always include in the beginning of my lessons that students are free and encouraged to create their own art. If I'm doing a directed drawing lesson, I tell the kids that they're free to draw similar lines as mine, or not similar. Our mantra is "You're the Artist of Your Work" -- make it yours, however you want your art to look.
Well, somehow in my haste and absentmindedness I forgot to share these words and at the end of this lesson one of the students said, "I really wanted to make a red parrot and different fruit." I said, "Well why didn't you?" He said, "I didn't know that would be okay." ----See what I mean, heartbreaking.....It's such a fine line between giving enough instruction to make the kids feel comfortable to create and not giving too much instruction to hinder their creativity. I'll be teaching 20 years from now and still working on that one!

At any rate, this lesson helped us focus on foreground and background. And, we solidified that objects in the foreground are low on the page, while objects in the background are high on the page.

Step 1: Draw fruit in the foreground.

Step 2: Draw fruit in middle ground.
Step 3: Draw fruit and parrot in background.

Step 4: Draw table and add highlights and shadows.

Frida Kahlo is a favorite of mine, but the pain in much of her art (& heart) can be a scary subject for kids. Then, when I came across a Frida mural lesson that Laura had posted on her wonderful blog called Painted Paper, I was inspired to do melon still lifes with my students based on Frida's painting called Viva la Vida.

This lesson was done with white crayon and oil pastels on blue paper. Because of time, we only did three melons.
First we drew our still life with pencil on scratch paper.
Then we drew our still life with a white crayon on blue paper. The white crayon doesn't show under the pastels and it saves the kids from making messy art because a number of kids get carried away erasing too many lines.

Step 1: Large oval for back melon.Step 2: Add an "open mouth with jagged teeth" for the top of the open melon.

Step 3: Draw a "U" shape under jagged-teeth mouth.

Step 4: Draw slice of watermelon in front.

Step 5: Add table line in the background.
Then color!

Great Job Santa Rosa Academic Academy, 2nd, 3rd, & 4th graders!!!

Frida Kahlo Quote

Image via Wikipedia

The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.

Frida Kahlo- Mexico, 1907-1954