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Statements
= Murals
Summary
Students
work together as a group to design and paint a mural which expresses
something about their community and environment. The design principle
of unity is stressed.
Program
Area
This activity
is suited to the Grade 9 Arts section of the Transitional Years
curriculum. This activity could follow an activity introducing
concept of shape, and the integration of external ideas into art.
Learning
Outcomes
Teaching,
learning, and evaluation will focus on the student's ability to:
- Recognize
the use of murals in the work of artists;
- Collaboratively
create a mural based on a unifying idea;
- Demonstrate
a positive group relationship through the collaborative production
of an art project.
Materials
Drawing
paper cut to scale for proposed mural site, pencils, markers,
overhead projector, brushes, drop cloths, ladders, latex wall
paints.
Background
Several
murals should be examined by the class. Works by the following
artists could be examined: Diego Rivera, Michelangelo, Marc Chagall,
Grant Wood, and Thomas Hart Benton.
Classroom
Development
- Show
slides of murals to students, highlighting the social and public
nature of this art form. Show and discuss works of art that
exhibit unity. Discuss different unifying devices, such as repetition,
simplicity, harmony of colour or shape, proximity, and continuation.
- Next
students are to collaborate and agree on one design for the
mural. This to result in a very detailed sketch. A wall is chosen
as a site for the mural, making sure that permission has been
granted, in writing, to use the space.
- Just
before students do any studio work remind them of the safety
precautions which are relevant to this particular activity.
Also explicitly refer to the introductory discussion/activity
on safety procedures from the beginning of the term/semester.
- The work
is then divided up. Protect area with drop cloths. A coat of
white paint is applied first. The sketch is enlarged using the
overhead projector. Students then paint the mural.
- Students
then present the mural in a planned ceremony. If the mural is
placed in the community, students should be encouraged to make
it as public as possible. A festival atmosphere such as students
envision might follow the unveiling of a major mural can be
planned, including poetry reading, dramatic presentation, speeches,
and anything else the students can imagine to make this a community
event.
Cross-disciplinary
Links
Students
can suggest that their English and history classes study the social
contexts in which murals have been popular. Periods of revolutionary
fervor and state sponsored artistic endeavours are possible example
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