4th Grade Jasper Johns "Encaustic" Flags

Fourth grade studied the flag artwork of Jasper Johns and created their own version of encaustic artwork with a sense of identity. 

This project was done in two parts: 

Step 1

The students cut out words from magazines that described themselves and collaged them onto white paper.  They then added a white wash over the collage so that we could still read the words, but everything was unified by the white. 

Step 2

Next, the students used a sheet of fine grit sandpaper and drew a flag in reverse.  They were to leave the white stripes uncolored.  I didn't require them to draw stars because of the melting process in the next step.

Once the students layered up enough color on the newspaper, I flipped their sandpaper upside down on top of their white-washed collages and pressed a hot iron to the back of the sandpaper.  The crayon melted onto the collage to create a very textured flag.

Make sure that you use a fine grit sandpaper because we found the a courser grit won't release the melted crayon when heated. 

Kindergarten Jasper Johns Inspired Number Paintings

This has to have been the most messy project I've ever taught.  Sometimes I think to myself, "Why in the world am I doing THIS with KINDERGARTEN?!"  But when the project is finished and I see the end result, I'm so glad I went ahead and persevered through the mess. 

Day 1:  Kindergarteners studied the art of Jasper Johns, specifically his number paintings.  I drew a "tic-tac-toe" grid on their paper and they added the numbers 1-9 inside the grid.  Choosing one color of tempera paint, they painted over their numbers. 

Day 2:  Trying to eliminate dirty water and dirty paint colors, we started with yellow, and they painted around three of the numbers, then three more with orange, and the last three with red.  I gave them clean water again, and they used green, blue, and then purple. 

Day 3:  Starting back at yellow, they filled in the empty spaces around the numbers.