Picasso Lesson Plan

I designed this lesson almost two years ago when I was volunteering at a local elementary school. Each grade was to create art in the style of a famous artist. In that context it was a lot of fun because we came up with individual projects as well as a large group project. This project can be done as a painting or a coloring project.

When people think of Picasso and Cubism, many people only think of the faces and figures they have seen. I was fascinated to read this collection of articles about Picasso's Musical Instruments.

I start by handing out black line coloring pages of instruments, or I have the students draw instruments themselves. I brought
in photo references, but it would have been even better for them to have real instruments to draw from. Drawing instruments is a lot of fun! The students are often surprised to find that they can do a great job.

Next we cut out the instruments and cut them into pieces. Two or three cuts should be enough. We paste them onto a blank canvas or paper and then divide the white spaces into planes. The picture can be colored with a very limited palette like Picasso used with "analytical"cubism, or the bright colors he used later on with the transition into "synthetic" cubism.

The students can add anything else they want like music note, words, or different views of the instrument.

To make a large group project, each student colors a different instrument and glues the pieces to one shared sheet of poster board. The collective project is much more realistic to what one experiences at a rock concert or a symphony that a straightforward still shot would be.