Art and the American Experience

Roy Lichtenstein

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Lichtenstein's BLAM and learn about his use of graphic design in the printing process; Describe how Pop Artists show depth and motion with flat areas of color; Identify Benday dots and action lines; Draw impact words and illustrate their meanings using speech balloons; Create balanced compositions using graphic images with implied movement.

Flo Oy Wong

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Flo Oy Wong's Sue Shee Ran the Corner; Learn about the materials and message of her multimedia artwork; Describe its intent and content; Identify the use of color, line, and emphasis; Discuss the role of artwork in making a social comment; Arrange balanced compositions that tell personal stories; Sew pictures and objects to textile backgrounds; Print symbolic words on textile and combine words, pictures, mementos and symbolic color in their own artwork to relate personal narratives.

Edward Hopper

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Hopper's House by the Railroad and learn how Hopper used light and perspective to set mood; Describe the viewpoint and shading of Hopper's house; Identify the light source, shadows and the author's spotlight technique; Describe how his artwork makes a social comment; Draw houses using two-point perspective; Paint houses with watercolors and mix dark hues to paint shadows.

Dorothea Lange

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Lange's Migrant Mother with Three Children and theorize on the artist's intent in making this artwork; Learn about how Lange's pictures influenced documentary photography; Identify varied tones, from dark to light, that create the illusion of form; Describe ways photography can make a social comment or protest social conditions; Draw portrait faces in proportion using shading pencil; Create black and white portraits that use tones to show shadows and highlights, creating form.

George Caleb Bingham

In this lesson the student will: Analyze George Caleb Bingham's Fur Traders Descending the Missouri and learn about the implied message; Identify the use of atmospheric perspective; Describe the way color sets mood; Mix watercolors to create tones and values of color and draw objects reflected in water; Paint with watercolors, using wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, and dry-brush techniques to show reflections.

Mimbres Pottery

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Mimbres pottery and learn about the Mimbres culture and its art; Identify figures and patterns in the bowl's decorations; Describe the stylized figures and radial symmetry; Draw figures and patterns to decorate bowls; Sculpt clay coil pots and decorate them in the Mimbres style using positive and negative designs.

Grant Wood

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Grant Wood's The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and Fall Plowing and learn about his continuous-narrative illustration of Longfellow's poem and his use of bird's-eye view and stylized objects; Identify the way the pictures are organized with radiating symmetry, repeated patterns, and stylized figures and describe the way color sets mood; Draw landscapes showing hills and fields radiating from hidden vanishing points; Create patchwork landscapes with stylized landscape features and patterned areas using chalk pastel.

Robert Rauschenberg

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Rauschenberg's Retroactive I and learn about the silk-screen technique he used to make flat "combine" paintings, which merge painting and sculpture; Identify the images and historical period described by Raushenberg; Describe the way color, line, and brush strokes combine to tell a story; Draw objects that represent periods or themes in American history; Create collages that describe themes and that express personal opinions about social or political issues.

Thomas Hart Benton

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Benton's Cotton Pickers and learn about his murals that show American laborers working in different jobs; Identify the movement seen in static and dynamic figures and landscape objects; Describe Benton's use of color to create mood; Talk about how art reflects a current world or domestic event; Draw figures in proportion; Paint watercolor environments using a variety of watercolor techniques and mix colors to show mood.

Judy Chicago

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and learn about the symbolism used to represent the women honored in it; Identify the elements of line, color, and texture that unify the table; Describe the textures used in the installation; Download and photoshop artwork by their favorite artists; Create and design a place setting with plate, cup, and napkin to honor favorite artists in style of Judy Chicago.

George Segal

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Segal's Girl in Doorway and learn about how he conveys meaning through life-size figure sculptures; Identify the use of line, texture, and positive and negative space to show expression; Describe the relationship of the figure to the door and the implied meaning; Draw figures in motion; Sculpt maquettes of doors in relief and foil figures in poses that tell stories; Make critical judgments about the social, political, and emotional commentaries in their own work.

Frank Stella

In this lesson the student will: Analyze Stella's painting Darabjerd III and learn about his use of the Minimalist style; Identify radial symmetry, tertiary colors, and hard-edge shapes; Describe Stella's use of balance and variations on a theme; Draw a variety of composition based on the protractor shape; Create color studies based on the protractor shape using tempera paint.