Introducing Keith Haring

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Categories

• Curriculum: Art, Computer, Language Arts
• Age/Grade: Elementary 2
• Subject: Drawing, Film, Multi-Media
• Materials: Mixed Media
• Institution: Lower Kersal Community Primary School
• Location: Lower Kersal United Kingdom
• Duration: 1 - 2 Classes

Description

Lesson to introduce the work of Keith Haring to a class of 7 and 8 year old pupils.

Objective

For the children to be able to identify features of Keith Haring's work.
For the children to be able to recall key facts associated to the artist's life.
For the children to be able to comment critically and emotionally on the artist's work.

Resources

Prepared Powerpoint slide with examples of Haring's work on it and a brief biography of him.
iPod touch. Netbook with MS Moviemaker installed.
Card, scissors, marker pens and paper.

Materials

Paper and card

Procedure

Children were introduced to the work of Haring. They were shown some of his pieces on an interactive whiteboard and then read a short biography of the artist. This was then removed and children were asked to work in small groups, recalling as many facts as they could. Once this had taken place children were asked to place these chronologically on a timeline. A simple biography of the artists was then created using bullet points.

Children looked at individual pieces of Haring's work. They were encouraged to discuss the artist's use of colour, shape and line. They were asked to think about possible sources of inspiration. They were encouraged to come up with possible stories for each of the images. Children discussed in detail the artist's use of lines to indicate movement and sound.
Children then were asked to try and sketch some shapes in a similar style to Haring in their sketch books. Once confident with this they were asked to draw larger images onto coloured paper and cut them out.

In groups of 6, children worked together to create a simple animation using their cut out shapes. Still photographs were taken with an iPod touch. Children moved their cut out shapes a little at a time, remembering to take a new photograph each time this had taken place. The images were then loaded onto a netbook and imported into MS Moviemaker to enable quick playback of each separate image (creating an animation efect).

Once the animations had been created children were asked to glue down their shapes onto large 90cm x 60cm pieces of card, adding movement and sound lines with a black marker pen. These collaborative pieces were then sent off to be professionally framed for display in our school's main office areas.

Questions

What do you notice about the artist's use of colour, shape and line?

What do you think the image is about? What is its 'story'?

How does the piece make you feel? Why?

What are your personal thoughts on Haring's work? Give reasons for them using reference to colour, shape etc.

Extensions

The children are now creating a huge Haring-inspired mural on a large white-washed wall in our school corridor using bold acrylic paints.

 

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