Joan Miro Animals

Yet another lesson inspired by Deep Space Sparkle!

This lesson is awesome for 1st and 2nd grades! I believe it really brings them out of their "I can't draw" box and allows them to practice good coloring skills.

Materials: any size paper, black crayons, and colored crayons

Students looked at artist Joan Miro's painting Woman with three hairs surrounded by birds in the night and I asked them to tell me what they saw (Describe). "Shapes, Lines, Colors!" Of course many other funny and excited things were mentioned. 

We also discussed how it may be hard to see exactly what the picture is of. This is called Abstract. Even after hearing the name of the work, students were still baffled. 

The students were so excited when I told them we were going to create some Joan Miro Animals!!

I began by showing them how to draw an animal or two with shapes and lines. After the basic contour was drawn, I added lines to the bodies to make them look more like a work of art by Miro. Students liked guessing what it was I was drawing. This kept them on the edge of their seats.

Students were to draw their animal using either pencil or black crayon. (If students used pencil, they were to trace over it with a black crayon) I typically use black crayons so designs will have a more eye popping look. Pencil seems to get lost.

Students were given a teacher check before they could start with colored crayons (so I could collect the black crayons)

I asked students if they saw scribble scrabbles in Joan Miro's work. "Of course not, so let's do our best coloring." (I walk around the room giving lots of feed back on how well their coloring is. Positive reinforcement is always the best!)

The final results of this project were amazing.

My 2nd graders created Joan Miro People last year, but I knew they would love to draw animals. The modification for 2nd grade was to use markers on larger paper.