Jasper Johns Flags

Before Christmas break, one of the 2nd grade teachers asked me if I could do a silhouette project with her students in conjunction with President's Day and such.  I decided to turn this into a Jasper Johns unit to talk about the American flag and symbolism.  Part one of this unit is based off of a project I found on Pinterest.

We took a day to look at various Jasper Johns artwork in a power point, and then I asked students to create a drawing based on Jasper Johns art.

The next class, we talked about patriotism and the symbolism of the flag.  We also talked about how Jasper Johns always used interesting canvases for his artwork.  I passed out a packet of American songs and poems (the national anthem, the pledge, and America the Beautiful .  I had students cut these up and paste them onto some white tag board.  We talked about cutting them apart in creative ways to make the word placement interesting.

On the third day, we painted a blue square and red stripes (after reviewing the symbolism of those items), and I passed out white finger paint for the students to add the stripes.

For the second project in our unit, we are creating silhouettes of our heads and shoulders, painting the flag inside the silhouette, and then painting the background black, kind of for a reverse effect if you will.