Onomatopoeia Art

This is an idea I've seen on a couple of blogs but I saw it first on Artisan des Arts. It was particularly perfect as we're studying onomatopoeia in language, 1960s in history and Pop Art in art!

After some language work each child chose one example of onomatopoeia for their art. They had to think about what style of writing would suit the word, draw it and colour it in a single colour using felt-tipped pen. The second stage was covering a piece of paper with cut out newspaper. Pupils were encouraged to use columns and paragraphs to guide their cutting and to overlap the newspaper in all different directions. Thirdly, they drew some kind of explosion or cloud shape on the back of the newspaper sheet and cut it out. They stuck the shape on a piece of coloured paper and then cut it out again leaving a border. Finally, they stuck down the shape and word (which they had also cut out - this project was great for scissor control!) onto another sheet of coloured paper and outlined the word in black.

I love the way these are turning out and there are still a lot of really creative ones still to be finished.

Work in Progress

A week ago we started our Op Art mural and it is still work in progress. We had discussed Op Art before Easter (and during a visit to a modern art gallery) so we just had a brief review of the style and talked about the use of line and colour before the colouring began. Everyone in the class has coloured at least a couple of 'squares' so far.

I first saw the idea on Artisan des Arts (which also linked to another post) and used the advice to create this project. I stuck together some large sheets of paper and drew the design. Pupils have been colouring alternate boxes (which I'd marked with a small 'x') and have just started to colour the remaining boxes black. We all liked how it looked without the black but adding it does help to cover up any mistakes as well as make the design stand out.

We're really enjoying having this project on the go and I would definitely try it again - it would be fun to try out other Op Art designs. I would also get pupils more involved in drawing out the design. I'll post the final results when we're done!