In a beautiful workshop about Street Art, made with the third class at the MART museum in Rovereto (Trento, Italy) we drew these drawings, imagining that we are street artists with large spaces available to be decorated. We worked with the professionists of EDUCATION AREA of Mart, with its section dedicated to the art teaching. They have proposed us a path through the elaboration of a “TAG”, a signature which can be drawn in various styles, following the trend of the GRAFFITI style. We have learned that the most current Street Art is not made only by elaborate writing, but also by figurative or abstract images, that arouse emotions and tell stories. The viewer is plunged into the large size of these figures, in their giant, engaging, magical narrative. The idea proposed by our talented friends of Mart, guided us in this discovery of the Street Art, focusing especially on PUPPETS, the great figures that populate the walls of large buildings in cities around the world. After seeing the work of artists like Ariz, Passo, Macs, Millo, Phlegm, we realized our puppets by drawing with colored pencils on tracing paper. The basis of the design are enlarged photocopies of buildings with large empty walls.
Instructions:
- invent a character
- deform the body and face (no need to respect the proportions)
- adapt the position of the body to the space to be decorated
- think of an object or an activity (the character has to do something with some object)
- tell a story (the character can think / feel / communicate emotions, a message or an intention)
- draw a background, realistic or abstract
- draw and color in pencil on tracing paper. You can also redraw the contours with a thin black marker
- put your own TAG (your signature with an alias)
Brilliant!
Thank you Kami! 🙂
have you got a copy of the buildings on file?
Hi Jackson! Unfortunately I don’t have any file, the museum’s staff gave me the photocopies of the building, and I don’t know where they took them from. 🙁
What a great lesson! The student artwork is creative, humorous and each one unique. Did you find the students having any difficulty in coming up with their ideas? Did they ” find” the building they wanted to use first then come up with a design idea? Or design idea first then the building? And I’m assuming that they cut, then collaged the finished drawing onto the building? What did you use as an adhesive? Love your blog ?And thank you for sharing your lessons with us! They are fantastic!
Hi Marianne, thanks for your comment! I have received the photocopies of buildings at the Museum which propose us the activity, but the drawing have been done at school. The students chose the building (we had 5/6 kinds of building in black & white photocopies) and then they drew the “puppets” on a opaque tracing paper. In that way they could see the outline of the wall they would decorate. I told them to draw a figure that was doing something, with an object in the hands or with a kind of strange “story”. The figure could be out of proportions, with big head, long legs, odd colours… in the style of street artists’ puppets
We drew with colored pencils, then we cut out the drawing and eventually we pasted them on the photocopy with glue stick.
If you need other information I’m glad to help you! 🙂
Thank you Miriam for your responses to all of my questions-it is appreciated! I just recently found your blog ( through Pinterest) and look forward to reading your posts and looking at your lessons. Wonderful site!
Thanks Marianne! Keep in touch!