Your Gifted Learner: Pablo Picasso Elementary Art Lesson Pre-K to 6th Grade

Josey’s Art School

Presents

Studying Art with the Masters

Robin Norgren, M.A.

This Lesson: Pablo Picasso: Cubism inspired Dogs

“Dog and Rooster (Cock)”

Discussion

· Even as a child, Picasso was better at drawing than many adults. He could draw and paint just about anything, and in any style. He liked to experiment and try out new ideas.

· Cubism is when the artist paints an object, like a bottle, from lots of different angles all in the same picture. So, you see the front, the back and the sides of the bottle at the same time. In a way, it’s a bit like having x-ray eyes! Picasso loved to paint in this style.

· Picasso helped us see the world in new ways. He painted in many ways called “stages:” The Blue Period and the Rose Period came first (when he used lots of blue and pink to make paintings). These were followed by primitivism, cubism, classicism (when he created more traditional or classic artworks), surrealism, wartime and Late Works.

Source: https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-pablo-picasso

Materials needed

Pencil (to write the child’s name on the back of the work)

12x12 scrapbook paper (you can also use scraps of scrapbook paper)

6x9 piece of blue or black construction paper

White tempura paint

Paintbrushes and water bowls

White and black crayons

scissors

Glue

Baby wipes

Aprons

Length of Time/Duration of project:

30 minutes

Prep work:

- Stencils of shapes of circles and triangles as options for tracing eyes and ears

This should take no more than about 15 minutes

Instructions

You have a few options for how you want to proceed with developing the main thrust of the project. I work with 3-5 year olds in a Montessori setting. This means that you are met with a gamut of skill levels. Some children will have no problem handling more of the details of this project which means less time needed to prep and more of the experience for the way the artistic process works is offered to the child. I have attempted to give you two ends of the spectrum but please feel free to modify as needed.

1.Take your piece of white paper that you are using as the base for the project and write the child’s name on the back of the paper or let them write their names on their own.

2.Take your piece of scrapbook paper and place it in front of you. Paint your paper white allowing some of the colors in the scrapbook design to poke through. Allow to dry. Begin to discuss the shapes of the different parts of a dog’s body: eyes, ears, tail, nose.

3.Draw a large eye and a small eye using a black crayon. Now draw a tail = make sure these are not too small because you will be cutting them out.

4.Draw a nose..

5.Draw an ear.

6.Draw a leg.

1. Take your white crayon and draw 6 dots randomly and spread out on your construction paper.

2. Cut out your parts of the dog and place them randomly on the dots.

3. Turn your paper around until you can ‘see’ your dog.