10+ sessions; 45 minutes per session

1. The students will view and discuss work by relevant artists.
2. The students will apply paint or ink with non-traditional tools.
3. The students will explore creating a traditional image with non-traditional materials.
4. The students will explore creating sculpture with found objects and non-traditional materials.
5. The students will plan and implement a project that is created with a non-traditional process or materials.

Ink pads
Large sheets of paper
Masking tape
Yardsticks
Tempera paint
Collage materials- fabric, sequins, pipe cleaners, buttons, found materials
Found objects- broken and abandoned objects, whatever you can find

Need these materials? Visit Blick!

Day 1: Look at Chuck Close’s fingerprint portraits- layering prints to create different values- and discuss. Look at images of Matisse doing gestural drawing using a pole and discuss- why did he use that approach? Next, students will make a picture of a plant from observation either using their fingerprints inked with a stamp pad or a paintbrush on a stick (use masking tape to attach a paintbrush to a yardstick and hold at the end).
Day 2: Continue plant pictures, try the opposite of fingerprints or paintbrush on a stick.
Day 3: Look collage/fiber artists Mickalene Thomas, Bryan Grove, etc. Students make small traditional image with nontraditional media.
Day 4: Look at found object/assemblage artists. Explore available materials and play/experiment.
Day 5: Come up with a proposal and present to teacher. Work on project!
Days 6-20: Work on assignments.

You can customize this with whatever materials you have available.

Pictures:
1. Students observing plants and using ink fingerprints or paintbrushes on sticks to draw them.
2. Jewelry made from parts of a circuit board from something old and broken.
3. Student used a broken hair dryer to make a spinning drawing machine. The landscape was one of many experiments made with meted crayon on the rotating part of the fan.
4. This was a kite fabric collage made from scraps and stitched together

Chuck Close, Henri Matisse