1. Your Name in Living Color
Presentation modified and prepared by Alice Finch 2012
4th Grade Art Project
West Mercer Elementary Art Enrichment Program

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3. Lesson Overview 1 Lesson: Color Medium: Watercolor Time: 60 minutes
Project Overview/Skills
Students will write their name in block letters considering the poster style of Stuart Davis. To complete their work, they will use watercolors to add color in a complementary color design.
Print Suggestions
36.9 Stuart Davis Combination Concrete
Vocabulary
Complimentary colors
Emphasis
Composition
Source

4. Name in Living Color Materials Needed
Watercolors (use the 8-color size)
Water
Cups/Containers for water
Brushes
Paper Towels
Black Crayons
Watercolor paper 11x15
Pencils
Straight edge (rulers)--check with your teacher to see if the class has enough
Black Sharpies
Color Wheels (helpful for students to view)

5. What do you see?

6. Background
Look at the print Combination Concrete by Stuart Davis. What pops out at the students? The bright colors? The geometric blocks of color? The lettering? The composition of the painting?
Some of Stuart Davis’ paintings were of urban landscapes. It has been said that he liked to keep painting until the canvas was as complicated as the subject. What do you think he was painting here? Do you think he was trying to make a statement? What do the words mean?

7. Stuart Davis American Painter Influenced by jazz
Painted in a modern style
Uses bright, solid shapes
Mostly still life and landscapes
Impression of the New York
World’s Fair

8. Stuart Davis Born in Philadelphia 1892-1964
His father was an art editor and encouraged his son’s artistic talents and his mother was a sculptor
When he was exposed to Van Gogh and Picasso, he because committed to modern art
He is most famous for his abstract still lifes and landscape
His use of contemporary subject matter made him a pop artist
He used natural forms, he rearranged them into flat, poster-like patterns with precise outlines and sharply contrasting colors
In 1950, he began looking at objects as lines, planes and shapes crossing and creating geometric patterns.
His works were a combination of abstract and recognizable objects.
Many times the tempos and rhythms of jazz music show up in his paintings.
Later he went into pure abstract patterns, into which he often included lettering as suggestions of ads, posters
As his work got more abstract, he always said that every image he made had its source in observed reality
“I paint what I see in America.”

9. Hot Still-Scape for Six Colors

10. Swing Landscape

11. Cityscapes
New York Waterfront Skyline

12. How to read a color wheel
What are complementary colors?
How does Stuart Davis use complementary colors?

13. Color Wheel Review the color wheel and complementary color concepts.
The complement of a color is its opposite on the wheel.
Purple is the complement to yellow, red to green and blue to orange.
Placing complimentary colors in a composition together tends to make an intense statement.
You could ask the students to brainstorm, for example, sports teams with complementary colors: yellow and purple (Huskies); blue and orange (Mets, Chargers, Florida Gators) etc.

14. Today’s Project
Make a poster of your name in the style of Stuart Davis
Use the complementary colors of a color wheel

15. Step 1- Practice letters
On scratch paper, write your name in BIG and THICK letters so that it fills the entire page
Letters can be diagonal, curved, or uneven.
Stuart
Madeline
Andrew
Rachel
Aidan
Ethan
Nicole

16. Practice Letters
Give each student a piece of scratch paper in the landscape position
you may want to tape two pieces of paper together so they can practice with the larger size).
Have the students practice drawing their name, using pencil, in large block letters. The letters must be large and thick.
Their name should be centered on the page and span most of the page.
They can practice using different letter styles (curved, jumbled, diagonal, graffiti, etc.) and different layouts.
Before handing out the watercolor paper, make sure they are making BIG letters that fill the page.
The most challenging part of this lesson is getting the students to:
1) make their letters big and substantial (not skinny); and
2) fill the page with the letters.
You want them to fill up most of the construction paper with the bubble/block letters or the lesson won’t work as it should.
The idea is to get the letter big enough to trace with crayon and paint inside AND have the letters span several segments so the colors change.
If they complete their letters, and one segment has no letters in it, the students can extend any part of the letter to get into an otherwise blank segment.
They may want to angle their name along the paper diagonally to the paper edge or put it on a curve -- encourage them to use creativity in their composition.
Refer them to the lettering on Stuart’s print.

17. Step 2- Final version of name
Write your name on the back of the watercolor paper.
Orient the paper in the landscape position.
Draw your final name design on a piece of watercolor paper, texture side up.

18. Step 3- Dividing Lines Draw a dot in the center of the paper.
With a ruler, draw 2 diagonal lines and 1 vertical line, using the dot as the center.

19. Step 4- Crayon Resist
Outline your name and the lines in crayon, pressing down to make a thick, heavy line that covers the pencil completely.
The crayon wax will act as a resist to the watercolors and keep them from bleeding together.

20. Step 5- Painting the color wheel
The six wedges will be painted as a color wheel: red/orange/yellow/green/blue/purple
The letters in each section will be painted the complementary color to the wedge section
Very lightly, write the first letter of the color that goes in each wedge and letter fragment.
Paint your red wedge and go across the wheel and paint red letters.
Continue through all the colors.

21. Step 6- Add your last name
In small thick letters, write your last name with an indelible pen.

22. Step 5 & 6
If possible, have an adult review each sheet prior to painting to make certain the colors are correct.
Have them rotate the paper as they move around--it prevents them from smudging the crayon and paint
It really helps the students understand this lesson if you do a sample on the white board. Take them step-by-step through the coloring of the wedges followed by the complimentary colors in the letters.
Some docents report good success if the project is done together as a class (everyone paints their first wedge red, the next yellow etc. and waiting to make sure everyone is keeping up).
If the paint is dry enough, they also could use the sharpie to add a design inside a letter (polka dots, swirls etc.), especially if they need to cover up pencil markings.
When dry, mount the work and display.