2nd Grade: Cubist Creatures!

2nd Graders dived into the world of Pablo Picasso, learning about his Cubist style, and the thinking behind it. Cubism seeks to simplify objects down to their most basic shapes. Picasso also tried to examine his subjects from many different angles, and then incorporate those viewpoints into one artwork. That is why his paintings seem so mixed up! You may see a person with one eye looking forward, one looking to the side, a profile view of the nose and a 3/4 view of the mouth.

After watching the video "Dropping In On Pablo Picasso," students chose an animal to study that they would later use to create a Cubist portrait. We talked about how we need to look at pictures of the animals to observe the shapes we see. We began by drawing the animal using these basic shapes, then we can changed the parts by rearranging them, changing the sizes or the viewpoints. By doing so, we are giving viewers a completely new way of looking at our animals!

We worked in our sketchbooks because that is where artists keep their sketches, and record the findings from their research that informs their final artworks. Once their final sketches were approved, students drew their animals BIG on a piece of black tagboard. We then used glue to trace our lines.

Once dry, chalk pastels were used to fill in our shapes. We talked about using limited color palettes (between 2-3 colors) for the animal and the background, choosing different colors for each so that our animals really stand out!

The results are colorful, interesting and new! Here are just a few finished examples:

To see all of the finished Cubist Animal Portraits visit my website https://sites.google.com/site/mrsrart/student-galleries.