ALIVE
and kicking
to the
by Don Masse
Students were somewhat restricted by the requirement to incorporate symmetry in their designs. There was a wonderful range of variety in the visual outcomes of the challenge, nonetheless.
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or the past couple years, my fifth-graders have created unique symmetrical paintings as part of their exploration of painting and color value. Last year, we focused on the work of Australian artist Brad Eastman as inspiration for this experience. Brad draws much of his inspiration from the patterns that are found within the natural world. I really love his play of geometric and natural shapes, his use of contour line, and his wonderful sense of composition as he pulls everything together in his images.
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This year, I am making a concerted effort to connect more with our community of San Diego–based artists, so we looked at a number of paintings by Maxx Moses as inspiration. Maxx is a prolific painter whose work ranges from immense wall works to intimately small paintings on canvas. He often plays with symmetr y in works that combine figurative and abstract elements. Unlike Brad, he incorporates light and dark colors to bring more implied three-dimensional effects to many of his pieces. Maxx’s play of light and dark creates striking metallic-looking forms that give a large number of his pieces an otherworldly and futuristic feel, which highly engages my upper elementary students. I BEGIN THIS LESSON BY SHARING work that Maxx or Brad has done. Both ar tists’ work is similar in subject, symmetr y, and use of color value gradations. We spend a few minutes identifying these elements and talking about what these works remind us of and what the students see in them. While I have shared the work of the a p r i l 2 0 1 9 • 86 Y E A R S
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