First Grade Joan Miro's

Here are the projects that my students did last year: Joan Miro Portraits

This year, in keeping with the idea of choices, I used the same basic premise, however, I moved away from portraits, since we had already done a portrait when we studied Picasso. This time we did an abstract composition, which was a completely new, but fun concept for them.

After looking at a variety of Miro's paintings, I created a poster with the basic shapes and lines that the students saw in his artwork.

They used this poster to create their own composition, drawing a variety of shapes and lines onto a piece of black paper, using construction paper crayons.

Then, I gave them 3 choices for adding color: oil pastels, color sticks and tempera paint. The stipulation was that they had to choose something that they had NOT used on their Picasso.

They continued with the warm and cool color scheme and colored their entire piece. Pin It

First Grade Joan Miro Portraits

I first saw this lesson on Deep Space Sparkle and decided to adapt it for my first graders who have been learning about lines, shapes and warm/cool colors.

We looked at a variety of different Joan Miro paintings, focusing in on what shapes and lines they saw in his artwork. I found a good sampling of  Joan Miro artwork in a YouTube video and the kids ended up playing a game of "I Spy" searching out all of the lines and shapes.

Then we brainstormed 2 different lists: lines and shapes.

From there, I did a sample drawing showing how we could make the body out of any shape that they wanted to use.

They used 1 line for the neck, 1 line for the arms and another line for the legs, then added a different shape for head, hands and feet.

From there, I had them draw 2 shapes inside the body (trying to use a shape that they had not used previously). 2 lines were then used and I told them that the lines had to go through the shapes.

They added 1 line in each of the hands and feet.

When they were ready to color, we reviewed warm/cool colors and they then had to color each individual section a different color, never letting the same color touch.

Pin It

Third Grade Miro Drawings

 My third graders had a blast with this project! They usually have a very difficult time working on anything that doesn't look "real", which is why I specifically chose Joan Miro as the artist that we were going to study for this project.

We started out by looking at a video that I had found on YouTube http://youtu.be/Fc-SrCJiArs which showed a wide variety of his artwork, but was fairly short (only about 2 minutes).
Before watching the video, I told them that I wanted them to look for the following things:
1) lines that Miro used in his paintings
2) shapes that he used
3) colors that he used
4) are there any recognizable figures in the paintings

When the video was finished, we brainstormed a list for each of these items.


Then I demonstrated how they could use shapes- circle, squares, triangles, ovals and add very basic lines- straight, wavy, curved, zigzag to create an artwork that looked amazingly similar to that of Joan Miro.

I had them practice in their sketchbooks first (for my 2-5th grade students, I usually spend the 1st day of a project planning out what they are going to do in their sketchbooks).

They had to choose if they wanted their project to be warm or cool (they used crayons in their sketchbooks, but oil pastels would be pulled out for the actual project).

For the next class, I pulled out black construction paper. Here's where I learned my lesson! I had a stack of random black construction paper. I also had the beautiful no-fade black construction paper. The projects that were done on the regular construction paper looked very washed out. I would highly recommend using the no-fade paper. It might be a little more expensive, but the end results are so much better!!!

The students then recreated their sketchbook design onto the black paper, using oil pastels in their chosen color scheme.

I pointed out to them that Miro did not color in every shape that he painted, so they left some sections outlined and colored in others.





For the finishing touch, I gave them a little cup of white tempera paint and a paintbrush and they painted a variety of lines onto their paper.

I would change the size of the paintbrush that I give them next time and give them a smaller brush, but other than that, I was very happy with how these turned out.

Pin It