Artist study on James Lawrence

Using our Meet the Masters program for artist study this month we worked on learning about James Lawrence who is an African American artist.  He is well known for more abstract work emphasizing city life.  He spent over 17 years observing and painting construction sites, and the many tools that can be found on a construction site.

Our assignment was to abstractly compose a drawing of commonly used tools using simple colors and lines.

Using some simple patterns the kids drew out the tools onto colored card stock

Then cut them out...we only used 2 or 3 colors

Then the children had to decide how they wished to compose their drawings

We talked about negative/positive space and foreground and background and how it all balances out a picture

Firedrakes version--the color spots are paint blotches:)

MarioFan's version

And mine version--I added nails although they look a little more like thumb tacks:)

As usual we learned a lot and had fun with our art creations.