Hundertwasser Murals

I recently did a group project with my classes.  In all my years of teaching, I've never done a group project because I hated them when I was a student. Things were never fair and someone always ended up doing most of the work.

Looking through Pinterest I found several projects by Friedensriech Hundertwasser,  an artist that I was unfamiliar with and I became fascinated with his work.  His work is whimsical, colorful and fun.  Recently, my district has made it easier to show our students YouTube videos and I was able to find several short videos that featured Hundertwasser and the students were able to hear the artist himself speak about his work, via video. 

I knew I wanted to do something with paint because my students were getting tired of pencils, colored pencils and markers.  One of my fellow art teahchers had recently done a project using black glue and I knew I wanted to give that a try as well.  I had a couple of rolls of butcher paper and I thought that murals and a group project might be a nice change.

I allowed students to pick their groups and they got busy.  They sketched out their ideas, making sure that they included all the elements of Hundertwasswer's work in their painting.  

They worked hard, with the black glue being the hardest part.  I think they enjoyed working in teams and while I don't think I'm going to do that again for a while, I would say that the project was successful.  The students are super proud of thier work and it brings a dose of much needed color to the hallways.