Circles are a chore to cut. Sure, there are tools that will help get you to a circle, but I am always on the lookout for already-circles! These are the cardboard from frozen pizzas.
The project began with mixing blue, yellow, and white tempera for a bright green background. Liquid starch was added to black tempera and then dripped across the painted cardboard surface. The starch gives the tempera a semi-gloss finish and it also seems to deepen the color. Finally, the children painted flowers blooming along the branches.
This art session presented a rare opportunity for 100% participation. The children all wantedto be participate, learn, and work. The idea of learning about manga, brush and line, and the all-important quality of cute was important to them. To make the session consistent with my idea of following the thread of art, finding a context for the modern works we would land on, I began with the Kano School screens before moving into the work of Murakami and the Kaikai Kiki (please note that we selected only certain images to refer to during our research), but after that I happily abandoned my original plans to provide the children with tangible shapes to arrange and paint into CUTE so that they could follow their own art threads. We were able to effectively create a factory atmosphere and the final project, a 18"x24" wooden board featuring a large icon fixed in a silver background captured perfectly the idea of superflat, of collaborative work, and the concepts of pop art.
