Friedensreich Hundertwasser

I recently discovered Hundertwasser through another blog, and fell in love with his work. I'm not all that into architecture, but his paintings are amazing. I knew as soon as I saw them that my students would love his bright colors, busy images, and lines. Doing a project based on him was a must, and I have finally gotten around to creating one. I started this with my second graders today, and so far the results are pretty good! After looking at the shape of his buildings, we decided that they look like onions, or garlic. Each student took a 4 1/2"X 6" piece of paper in pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquiose, blue, and purple. I used my document camera to show them how to draw the shape, and ended up having to re-demo it on the white board, as too many kids were saying the dreaded "I can't..." sentences. Once they got the shape down, I asked them to make many houses in many colors, in many different sizes. I showed them how to use oil pastel to add the lines on the shapes to make them more Hundertwasser-y and then glue them on the paper, starting at the top of the page. We talked about things that are farther away getting covered by things that are closer, so it wouldn't make sense to start at the bottom. I instructed them to "cover up the ugly color of the paper." Some will need a bit of tweeking, but so far so good!

Next class they will finish adding their houses, and put some bottoms on the shapes closest to the bottom. We'll add trees with concentric circles in them and nice big trunks. I can't wait to see their completed projects!