Willow Art Show Preview

I've spent my morning researching living artists, hoping to find inspiration for an art show inspired by them. All I have to say, is I am so sick of shock art! Seriously, maybe it's because I have two girls ages 3 and 2 and I don't really want to bring them to an art museum filled with genitalia or maybe I'm just getting old, but I am sick of it! It's old news, how about something creative and fun that can be introduced to elementary school children?

Ok, rant over.

Here's what I found that is inspiring AND age appropriate for my little cherubs. . .

Kindergarten will be making stone scupltures based off the work of Daryl Maddeaux. This will be so perfect, as one of the fourth grade teachers is working with several grants to create a raingarden in our "Cinder Lot" play area and this will be Kindergarten's contribution to that too. Special thanks to Princess Artypants for this post, which is where I got this idea.

First grade will create layered painting via Gerhard Richter. I'm thinking pallet knife/cardboard scraping the paint to get similar results.

Princess Artypants to the rescue again! When I referred back to her blog for the Kindergarten lesson I found this new post on the artwork of Edward Said Tingatinga. Beautiful! Although ES Tingatinga is no longer living, his sons and many other African artists continue producing artwork in his style. Way better than the pipecleaners-as-neon-signs project I was thinking of about Bruce Nauman!

Third grade photo collages a la David Hockney.

Fourth grade pour paintings inspired by Holton Rower.

Unlike all the other grades, who have yet to complete thier projects, fifth grade just finished using Romero Britto as inspiration for thier silk hoop batiks (link is to last year's music themed hoops).

As with many big events, it's possible that these ideas will be tweeked, revised, or even completely ditched prior to the big day.