Warhol Week

We rented the Andy Warhol DVD episode of the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series from the library. They have several different artists; we also picked up Monet, which we'll do next. The kids really loved watching it. I did, too. It's 24 minutes long and completely entertaining. It was full of fun facts about Warhol, such as his name was originally Warhola. It was spelled incorrectly in a publication, and he liked it and kept it. The video is full of examples of his work, and it teaches viewers about pop art. The kids have watched it 3 or 4 times.

I found this Andy Warhol Pop Mag activity guide online, and we printed it off and went through it together. Tornado and Dash each had their own copies, and Sissy drew on a title page while they were busy at work. Fun stuff. They had to complete such activities as designing a shoe (because Warhol drew a lot of shoes as a commercial artist) and listing what they would put in their own time capsule (based on Warhol's own Time Capsule project). Tornado wrote "comics, hidden pictures, animals (his stuffed animals he has lined up on his bed), and puzzles." They also really enjoyed cutting out and gluing the "stickers" of things that might be found in Andy's studio, The Factory.
Another activity - I made copies of their photos, first using the coloring book option on my photo editor. They picked a few colors they wanted to focus on, and I have to say, they worked really hard on their pictures. This was an idea I had long ago ripped out of a 2004 issue of Pack-O-Fun magazine. We mounted them on card stock. I think they look great!

The video mentioned a method Warhol used to "create." He painted a picture, then covered with another sheet and pressed down (something like that). Tornado requested we try it. I folded a sheet of sketchbook paper, and after they painted on one side, they folded it over and pressed down. Even Sissy loved doing this.

the completed works of art

Another picture of them showing of their art...I'm particularly endeared to Dash's shirt tucked into his underwear and shorts. :) What I am also endeared to is the way Dash goes around talking about "Andy Warhol," just as clear as can be. He throws his name into conversation, or may ask something like, "Daddy, do you know about Andy Warhol?" He always really gets into studying about people in history.

I noticed Journey into Unschooling had this fun activity on her blog. We'll have to try that one next!