Homeschool Art Lesson: Jackson Pollock
Today I will be covering our Jackson Pollock Homeschool Art Lesson. This week, my kids were excited to try out a brand-new artist that we haven’t studied before. Do you know this artist? Do a quick google search, and you may recognize his abstract paintings. They look like intricate, scribbled paint splashes! My fourth-grade son cannot believe he is famous. 😉 {A great conversation starter for how art is subjective, right?!}
We introduced the topic of abstract expressionism with a homeschool art lesson this week. I have really enjoyed teaching my kids about Art History, and it started completely by accident! You may have seen my first post a few weeks ago, on our Pablo Picasso Art History Study. In this first post, I explained how I stumbled upon Ambleside Online, and how one impromptu idea lead to a surprisingly successful Art History repertoire for our entire first homeschool year!
If you read the post, you may remember my thought back then: I was intrigued by the idea of teaching my kids about art, without paying for a museum pass or enrolling them in expensive painting classes. I came up with a plan of my own.
First: Use Ambleside Online’s Prints
Step One: Find Prints! Ambleside Online provides gorgeous full-color PDF prints of selected artists, each year. Each year, I print them out at my local library, laminate them, and plan a week or two to spend on each artist.
The first year, I think we covered six artists. I didn’t go crazy–I truly only picked six, and did them very spread out. Think: one every 6 weeks! Year two, I added in four more, and we reviewed the first six–for ten, total. This is year three, and I’m hoping to do the 10 (review) with several additional ones. Repetition is a great strategy in homeschooling–and any learning! Don’t be afraid to repeat concepts. It’s fun to see what your kids remember from year to year, and to see them make connections with new artists and styles! {Note: Jackson Pollock is not on the Ambleside site right now; I showed my kids his prints on the computer! There are, however, over 30 artists to choose from, and they rotate each year.}
Second: Search for supplemental books
Step Two: Find supplemental material! I keep it simple. I search our local library system and request a few books a week or two ahead of time. I also Google the artist’s name; something like “Jackson Pollock for kids” or “Jackson Pollock children’s book,” because I often find gems that weren’t coming up in the simple library search. Some artists will glean more results than others. For example, I only found one kid’s book about Pollock at our local library, whereas there were a dozen or so for artists like Van Gogh, Monet, and DaVinci.
I like having a few options of books out, the week of the new artist. I also get books related to their style of art, if possible! For Jackson Pollock, that style would be abstract expressionism.
Third: High-quality YouTube content
Third, I like to search YouTube for various projects, tutorials, or stories about the artist. My favorite storyteller is named Mrs. Beth, and her company is HIGASFY Productions (Have I Got A Story For You!)
Her content is spectacular. She does “storytime” about many of the artists. Here is the story for Jackson Pollock.
She also usually has art tutorials, specific to that artist’s style! Here are a few for Jackson Pollock:
Mrs. Beth has had some excellent videos for some of the other artists we’ve studied: Salvador Dali, Vincent Van Gogh, Norman Rockwell, and Andy Warhol. She has many more, for authors whose prints are not accessible on Ambleside–but you can definitely still do artist studies!
Last: simple pacing & low stress
The last thing I do, when teaching a new artist, is keep it simple! When we study an artist, it doesn’t take up very much time. We may spend 10 minutes a day talking about something, 2-3 times per week. Some weeks we may add in a project, which maybe adds in an extra 20 or 30 minutes. The prints hang in our sunroom, just in the background, during a 2-3 week period, and we observe their qualities together.
Implementing Art History in our homeschool was so much simpler, and less stressful, than I realized. During my first year of homeschooling, I felt like I should only focus on the basics–reading, writing and math. I felt like anything else would be a bonus. I did add in history & science content, as I was able. The biggest thing to remember is that adding in a new subject, especially an elective like art, doesn’t have to be a huge undertaking. You can start with simple concepts, then build on them in subsequent years.
I hope you are enjoying this series! Stay tuned to learn more about how Art History turned out to be a surprise success for us.
Cait
Leave a Reply