MASTERPIECE: Street Musicians (1940)

ARTIST: William H. Johnson (1901-1970)

CONCEPT: Painting shapes and patterns with contrasting colors

GRADE: Third

LESSON: Painting a musical instrument

Objectives: Students will draw a musical instrument using simple and geometric shapes and paint it in bold, bright colors

Vocabulary: Shape, Contrasting Color, Pattern

Materials: 9 X 12 white construction paper Tempera paint – contrasting colors Bowls Brushes Newspapers for desks

Process: 1. Briefly discuss the artist’s biography. 2. Ask questions to discuss the work: . Describe the people in the painting (simple geometric shapes, lack of expression on their faces) . What are they doing? What kinds of musical instruments are they playing? . Who do you think they are? Where are they? (no background scene, so you can’t tell) . What is in the background (PATTERN) . Look at their clothes – how are they dressed? . Johnson used many different SHAPES – what are they? (squares, rectangles, ovals, diamonds, triangles) . Do the people look real? Why or why not? Explain the difference between organic and geometric shapes (Organic shapes are irregular shapes of freely developed curves resembling those found in living organisms like people, animals, plants; Geometric shapes are squares, rectangles, circles, etc.) . What colors do you see? (CONTRASTING COLORS are those where there is a large difference between them – warm & cool, dark & light; contrasting colors add excitement and interest to a work of art) . What kind of music would come from this painting? . What do you think the title should be? 3. Discuss various kinds of musical instruments and their shapes. Draw simplified versions on the board using geometric shapes to demonstrate. 4. Ask students to choose an instrument they would like to draw. Make sure their drawing takes up most of the paper. 5. Have students make a pattern in the background. 6. They will paint their instrument using contrasting colors. The background should be done in lighter colors so the subject stands out.

Vocabulary Words:

Shape: A flat figure created when actual or implied lines meet to enclose a space. A change in color or shading can define a shape. Shapes can be divided into several types: geometric (square, triangle, circle) and organic (irregular in outline).

Contrasting Color: “Color” or “hue” is the common name of a color in or related to the spectrum, such as yellow, yellow-orange, blue-violet, green. “Contrast” is a large difference between two things: for example, rough and smooth, yellow and purple, light and shadow. Contrasts usually add excitement, drama and interest to artworks.

Pattern: A choice of lines, colors or shapes, repeated over and over in a planned way. Biographical Information: http://www.3d-dali.com/Artist-Biographies/William_H_Johnson.html http://americanart.si.edu/education/guides/whj/whj-bio.cfm http://www.scpronet.com/point/9512/p04.html

Additional Johnson Works: http://images.google.com/images?q=william+h+johnson&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images

“Street Musicians” by William H. Johnson

William H. Johnson MASTERPIECE: Street Musicians (1940) by William H. Johnson

This abstract painting depicts musicians playing guitars. The artist used repeating patterns in the background and bright contrasting colors to add interest and excitement to the painting.

About the Artist: Mr. Johnson was born in Florence, South Carolina in 1901. He moved to New York City at the age of seventeen and lived there with his uncle. He studied the academic and formal traditions of art at the National Academy of Design, which he entered at the age of twenty. In 1926, Johnson went to Paris, where he painted and studied modernist art. In the south of France, he began rapidly developing his own style, a realist-Impressionism strongly influenced by Van Gogh. In 1930, Johnson married a Danish textile artist and moved to Denmark. He and his wife also traveled throughout Norway and North Africa, studying traditional crafts and art in both cultures. In 1933, with the gathering threat of war in Europe, Johnson returned to New York and soon was influenced by the intensity and excitement of life in Harlem. His painting style brought together his interests in modernism, primitive art, and African-American life. His best paintings characteristically place flattened figures, in a limited and high-keyed palette, on abstracted ground, depicting scenes of daily life with great personality and intensity. He suffered from a mental illness and died in New York in 1970.

CONCEPT: Painting shapes and patterns with contrasting colors

GRADE: Third

LESSON: Painting a musical instrument

VOCABULARY: Shape, Contrasting Color, Pattern