Jasper Johns Letters

                

For my afterschool classes we learned about famous artists through history and we recreated one of their pieces. Previously we learned about Alma Woodsey Adams and Piet Mondrian. 

In this class, we learned about Jasper Johns and we looked at all the different kind of pieces he made. We focused on his paintings of letters and numbers. 

For our own project, students made a banner with their name recreating the letters Jasper Johns made. Students got enough small paper squares to write each letter of their name. They wrote their names like bubble letters. However, many of my students are very young so I taught them special tricks to make their letters into bubble letters. You can see a picture of my whiteboard and how I guided them to write each letter of their name. First, I had them write a capital letter. Next, we drew small lines on the edges of the letter and we connected those edges with lines. 

Once students finished drawing all their letters they used crayons to color them. They were able to use any colors they wanted and they were encouraged to use many colors per letter. I also reminded them to push hard as they colored so their final image would look clear. 

When students finished coloring their letters, I gave them watercolors to paint the outside. They had to paint all their square using many colors so it would look more like the colorful letters and numbers Jasper Johns made. 

When they finished coloring, I glued their letters to styrofoam and attached yarn to the top so they can hang their name anywhere they want.