Jim Dine Hearts

There's no forgetting what's on the kid's minds this week so I though some "heart art" would be fun. Making hearts cool and not sissy is sometimes a challenge and I think Jim Dine's work is a great example of cool and fun. Since we'll be out of school next week for winter break, I wanted the kids to complete this in one day, so we used collage and paint to fill our papers. Students got to choose their background paper color and then we took a sheet of white copy paper, learned how to fold and draw half a heart, cut it out and voila! I was surprised at how many older students didn't know this trick. After gluing the white heart onto the colored paper, we then collaged tissue paper on the heart and some background. Some kids liked keeping the collage on the heart only. The last thing was some paint pizzazz! I let them bring their art to a paint table and they could squeeze paint onto their art to give it something special. As always, no words or numbers - this is art not a valentine. Some art got a little heavy and soggy, but for the most part they turned out very cool and the kids had fun. - H. Corin