Michael Sarich Dose of Art Lesson Plan

Objectives: After viewing Like, Love, Lust: Michael Sarich, and learning about the influences, art, and stories of artist Michael Sarich, children participating in the Dose of Art will enter a classroom to create a work of their own inspired by the art of Michael Sarich. Students will learn about different kinds of marks used to make drawings, about the elements and principles of art, and about icons and symbols of personal and cultural significance. Students will then learn about the kinds of marks that can be made using different kinds of media, including colored pencils, crayons, and oil pastels. This process will give children the opportunity to experiment with multiple media, to learn about the elements and principles of art, and to create a drawing of their own from simple materials.

Vocabulary: mark, line, shape, color, symbol, icon, shade, value, tone, layer, study

Materials: 7”x22” railroad board; glue sticks; 5”x20” drawing paper; pencils; colored pencils; crayons; oil pastels; scratch paper

Lesson Description:
• When students come into the classroom from the tours, discuss Sarich’s artwork and what students have learned about it and the artist from their tour and the exhibition.
• Each classroom contains a classroom pack of crayons, colored pencils, and oil pastels, plus pre-cut railroad board and drawing paper, and glue sticks.
• Explain that a drawing can be a sketch, or a study, for a larger artwork, but it can also be a finished artwork itself.
• Explain that a drawing can be made with many different kinds of tools and media, including pencils, charcoal, colored pencils, crayons, oil pastels, chalk, and even dirt!
• Explain that each different kind of media conveys a different kind of feeling when it is used to make a mark on a piece of paper or other drawing surface, but that the way the media is used also has a profound impact on the feeling of a drawing.
• Ask students what kinds of feelings Sarich’s artwork makes them feel.
• Ask students to choose a type of media—a pencil, a colored pencil, a crayon, or an oil pastel. Then, on scratch paper, ask them to make one mark on the paper that feels or looks happy, another mark that feels or looks angry, and another mark that feels or looks sad. Ask the students whether there are other kinds of feelings that could be conveyed by the marks in a drawing.
• Ask students what kinds of symbols and icons they saw in the Sarich exhibition. Why do they think he might have chosen these particular symbols to focus upon in his art? What seems important or significant about the symbols to him?
• Explain that students will be creating a drawing using symbols and icons from the Sarich exhibition as well as symbols and icons that are important to them.
• Ask students to use a pencil and scratch paper and to draw for a few minutes. Ask them to think about three symbols or images that each of them feels is important in one way or another, and to draw those symbols on the scratch paper.
• When each student has two or three symbols sketched on their scratch paper, give each student a piece of the 5”x20” drawing paper for their use. Ask them to re-create the symbols across the paper using pencil if they would like, or any other media (be sure to encourage them to make them large enough to cross the entire paper, and to repeat them, if necessary).
• When the initial symbols are sketched in, ask the students to use and to experiment with multiple media—crayons, pencil, colored pencil, and oil pastel—to to create multiple layers of color, tone, and density in their images. Be sure to encourage them to fill up the paper—fill in the white space with marks!
• Encourage students to use numerous colors, but preferably to encourage them to think about the colors used in Michael Sarich’s work: primary colors, primarily!
• When their drawings are complete, give each student a sheet of the 7”x22” railroad board. Explain that they should turn their drawings over carefully and place just a few dabs of gluestick along the border, center it on the black railroad board, and mount their drawings in a “frame” to take home.