(introductory music) (upbeat music) - Hello, early learners it's me Mrs. Readwrite Welcoming you back to the art room where we're learning about Faith Ringgold and you know Faith Ringgold was a fabric artist.

Oh, why tell you about it?

let's sing about it.

Here we go.

♪Faith Ringgold is a talented artist.

♪ ♪ She paints story quilts and writes books.

♪ ♪ She creates soft sculptures makes mass and art prints.

♪ ♪ Join me as we take a good look.

♪ Let's start out with our hello song.

♪Hello nice to see you everyone ♪ ♪ Hello Nice to see you everyone ♪ ♪ Hello to you ♪ ♪ Hello to you ♪ ♪ Hello to you ♪ ♪ Hello to me ♪ ♪ Hello nice to see you everyone ♪ Now I want to tell you about the Faith Ringgold fact.

During our college years when she was going to New York city's college, she became a feminist.

Now I told you a feminist activist is a woman who acts on things that are happening that they don't think are fair.

So she and her girlfriends remember got together and said girls can be artists and more and more women were accepted to the college and they didn't have to just go to become an art teacher.

They got to be artists.

And I also wanted you to know that she, after she went to college in New York she went on an airplane across the ocean to Paris because she had heard a lot of artists were gathering there and she wanted to learn from those artists.

And one of the artists that she studied there but he was no longer living was Vincent van Gogh.

But who she really admired was Pablo Picasso.

Remember his Cuba spaces when they were all cut up like Humpty Dumpty, falling off the wall and putting them back together in a crazy way.

She did a little Cubist work herself during the time she was doing her art.

And today we're going to look at this print and this picture we looked at her yesterday with her kente cloth on her head.

But this is called the sunflower quilting bee at Arles.

Now, the reason they call it sunflower quilting bee is becoz they were quilting sunflowers on to this quilt in a garden of sunflowers in front of Vincent van.

Gogh's yellow house in Arles, and here she painted him holding a bouquet of sunflowers in the face that he is famous for painting.

So what I thought would be fun to do today is to make, do you see how they put the flowers in diagonal corner to edge, edge to edge corner?

we'll draw some diagonal lines and inside where the diagonal lines cross we'll make Brown centers or whatever color flower you want to make your sunflower center.

Some are kind of Brown.

Some are golden they're even red sunflowers.

So you can decide how you're going to make your sunflower in each of the spaces.

And then we'll fill in with green.

And finally, we will paint over it with black.

If you don't have a black paint, you can always just color over with your black crayons.

But you'll see I'm going to do a wash. And a wash is where you add a little more water to the paint and then paint over it.

So let me set my things aside and bring up my little table.

Here you go and here.

And I wanted to show you earlier I talked to you about making your own straight edge and here's just a piece of cardboard that I cut and so if I don't have ruler I can just put it next here.

I'll show you all use it and give you an example.

But I really do like my ruler.

I think one of these rulers is one my dad used to use when he was an artist and I have saved it for so many years.

It's fun to have a family member who is an artist.

My dad played piano.

So did my grandpa.

My grandpa would take his piano place to place when everyone was poor and they didn't have pianos at the places he would go he would take his piano with him.

Now here's what I have my white paper and I'm going to do dry diagonal lines.

So I'm going to put this on the edge near that little corner and I'm going to draw it with my black pen.

You can just use a pencil if you would prefer.

you decide what looks good to you.

And I'm going to draw from the corner to the edge.

Oh, my cardboard had a little ding in it but that's okay coz you'll see that you can make things that are imperfect yet they'll still look good.

And I'm going to draw another one Now this one doesn't go all the way to the edge.

So I stop.

See how it doesn't go to the edge coz my cardboard wasn't long enough.

So I scoot down put it next to the line a little bit over because the pen has some width to it.

So you have to move it a little bit over, set down the pin and go all the rest of the way.

So I'm going to set this aside and get my super long ruler and bring it down here.

Do you notice how I'm making my diagonal lines?

Would it be nice if they were all about the same size?

Probably but I don't know if I'm not to measure it whether it will happen.

So you keep drawing your diagonal lines too and we'll go across.

Don't make them too small coz then every one of your sunflowers will be too Hard to draw.

I'm gonna do this one.

I'll do another one right here.

Think I like what I'm doing here.

You know people tell me that they laugh when I say I like my work, but if you say you like your work that is a good thing.

Some people think Oh, you shouldn't brag about yourself.

But to me it's, it's not bragging.

It means I like it.

It doesn't mean I'm better than someone else or I don't know why people think it's funny when I say I like my work but I do.

Doing my dag and (indistinct) you see?

I thought, Oh, that would be a good size for a sunflower.

I can already tell with how many lines I'm drawing I will never finish this today but what do we say boys and girls?

set it aside.

Do it another time.

Don't have to worry about it.

Do we?

Isn't it fun to have something that you don't have to worry about?

doing art is always fun for me.

I never think, Oh, this is too hard.

I think it's my work.

Make it as hard as I want or as easy as I want.

Boy this is gonna be a lot of sunflowers.

I might end up putting more green than I do with sunflowers coz sunflowers take me a long time.

Now what I'm doing today is putting my pastels and you know it works out best If you have a pad underneath.

Maybe I can use my cardboard coz it pushes down much better.

I should probably start in the middle coz when I moved my hand down I could just keep rubbing it on the pastel.

So I'm going to work in the middle and I must use purple instead of Brown that would have been a surprise.

This is Brown can making the Brown center.

Oh yeah good size.

Pressing hard, pressing really hard.

I think I'll do three of them and then do the yellow of it.

Pressing down and putting it on here.

I'll do this one, this one and one over here.

The reason I'm moving it over boys and girls is so I can have the cardboard underneath.

There we go.

Now I'm going to get my yellow.

This one's so smudgy from being in that bag but that's okay.

And I'm just making just what I thought would happen coz I'm pressing super-duper hard.

coz when I paint over it, I want to be sure that it shows up.

I think that looks pretty good.

I'm going to put the pedals around this one pressing down I'm doing some curves some straight becoz flowers are not perfect.

Well, I shouldn't say that some are I've seen some flowers I think that one looks exactly like that one.

Those little chrysanthemums that are like a thumb Belina they call it.

They have like a little row of pedals that all look the same.

Yeah I'm gonna show you what it looks like with my green leaves.

I'm gonna look up at my example.

Oh, it's kind of a, just two curve lines and colored in just two curve lines and color it in.

And I can make little Viney pieces around and little Viney pieces around.

I wanted another leaf right here coz they don't have to just be in the corners.

They can be everywhere.

You decide how much green would look good on yours.

I'll make a little Viney piece.

I'm gonna show you what it looks like when I paint over it.

I'm not gonna paint all of it but I want you just to take a look.

I'm going to put some water just in that square where my sunflower is.

Do you see I'm making it pretty wet.

I'm getting into my watercolors and then I'll paint over that and wherever the pastel is the watercolor shouldn't stay.

And if it starts to stay a little bit too much and you don't like the look of it just get your paper towel and dab it.

Get some of the paint off.

Let me get my paper towel and press it down.

It will dry different from this.

But I kind of like it if I want it to look like their sunflower quilt and if I don't like it I won't paint any more like that.

I'll just keep drawing them.

So you draw you're circle And another circle up here.

Let me maybe I'll do this one too a pie and on the edge I think I'm going to make like she would have made if it were a quilt and make the edges where there are triangles just color them in a pretty color.

Oh, you know what I think I might do since it's kind of a garden knee looking one?

I think I will make my triangles on the edge.

Lime green.

Oh, look how it's picking up the Stripe of the cardboard, the corrugation, the corrugated cardboard The glue cardboard together with an piece on top and it makes it corrugated and it makes it stripy.

Oh, I kind of like it.

It's adding a texture to it, boys and girls I think I really do like it.

I'm not gonna try and rub it in.

I think I'll just make it look like that.

Some of the triangles are big and some of them are small.

That little tiny one I don't want to do it the same color that I did the others.

Oh, just broke it.

That happens.

Remember we don't have to worry about it.

coz that's what soft pastels sometimes do.

I didn't try to break it no.

You not want to draw try and break your pastels just coz they can.

You want to make sure you treat your materials carefully.

Oh, it looks like I need to draw a little line in there coz it made a space that wasn't really a whole space there that makes it good.

It makes it a place for me to do another triangle.

Not really sure I love that.

Maybe I have to think about how I can make it look even better.

I'm going to keep doing my drawings of this.

Now tomorrow is our last day of Faith Ringgold, you know.

And you will bring white paper again like today a pencil, a ruler a ruler again.

Oh goodness Coloring tools you can bring your watercolors or your pastels or crayons or markers coz we were going to make a quilt piece that will be one like Faith Ringgold did for a wedding a wedding, that will be interesting.

Okay.

Let me keep going up here you know I like this dark green around here so I will add some leaves.

All right.

Let's make sure we sing our good song by song together.

And I'll finish this up another time.

♪ Goodbye see you next time everyone ♪ ♪ goodbye See you next time everyone ♪ ♪ Goodbye to you ♪ ♪ Goodbye to you.

♪ ♪ Goodbye to you.

♪ ♪ Goodbye to me ♪ ♪ Goodbye See you next time everyone ♪ see you tomorrow boys and girls.

(Upbeat music)