Jim Dine Valentines

Jim Dine is the perfect artist to showcase this time of year. His pop art images of hearts go hand-in-hand with Valentine's Day, and allow us art teachers to feel like we're not just doing a silly craft (although those are fun, too, I admit). I've seen many variations of this project on other art ed blogs, but this is my take on it. I do this project with 3rd grade, in two 70-minute sessions. Because it is such a long class period and the watercolor part of it needs to dry, I do this in conjunction with a Chinese New Year project, which will be my next post.

During the first class period, it is all about watercolor. We fold a 12x18" piece of paper 3 times in half so that there are 8 sections. Each section has a different watercolor technique: Wet on wet, wet on dry, crayon resist, oil pastel resist, salt, plastic wrap, and two free spaces.

On the second day, we talk about Jim Dine and his pop art images. Then students choose 4 of their watercolor sections to be hearts, and 4 of them to be squares. I have square stencils for them to use, but they have to create their own heart "stencil" by folding a square paper in half and drawing half a heart. Then the squares and hearts are glued onto a 12x12" black square piece of construction paper. I stress the importance of laying everything out before actually gluing.

The projects make quite a statement in the hallway, if I do say so myself.