(upbeat guitar music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (upbeat guitar music) (playful music) - Hello, early learners, wwelcome back to the Art Room.

It's me, Mrs. Readwright.

Let's start our day 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 ♪ You know what these days are.

Over the next, the alphabet has 26 letters in it, so every day until we get to letter Z, we're doing a letter a day.

And today's letter is K. Let's sing our song about the alphabet, ♪ A, B, C, D, E of art ♪ ♪ That's the way that we will start ♪ ♪ K is for kitchen ♪ ♪ Lobster starts with an L ♪ ♪ M is for mother, we can tell ♪ ♪ N is for night ♪ ♪ Ocean starts with O ♪ ♪ Art and the alphabet, here we go ♪ So today is K is for kitchen.

And this picture is called Evening of the Gray Cat.

And you think gray cat, where's the cat?

So when you see this print, you'll find the cat hidden somewhere there.

Now Romare Bearden is the artist, and he thought cats were interesting to add to his art.

And he put them in there because he thought they were beloved and treasured pets, and he wanted cats to be in a lot of his art.

So he was starting out as a painter, but then he became known for his signature technique, called collage.

And collage we've done before, where you cut out things and put it on your paper, and you use pictures from a magazine if you want prints of things.

Well, he also would glue pieces of foil on there for shininess, and then he would paint over the top of it.

So his pictures look pretty layered.

This print is one I use all the time with teachers when we talk about art.

Because I asked them to play this game called the object race.

And I'll say, take a look at the print.

When you know where the cat is, show me this sign.

Or this means, aha!

And if you can find the cat, it's curled up sitting on a little chair or table.

Do you see it?

There he is.

The gray cat is there.

There's also a spotted dog and a lantern.

There's a wood stove and they call it a potbelly stove.

There's an instrument that they use to make butter.

This gentlemen is playing a guitar.

And something interesting about Romare Bearden.

And he liked to paint the African way of life.

African-Americans, and what they were doing in their regular life.

And he also so talked about things that would be normal, everyday activities.

Like they're cutting up watermelon here, but people always notice how large he makes the hands in many of his pictures.

Like this person has regular sized hands playing the guitar, but this woman has a giant hand there, and a regular sized hand there.

And children always ask, "Why the big hand?"

So I looked and looked to try to find where it said something about Romare Bearden and hands.

And he thought hands were the best thing about people because they would do jobs.

So maybe she's going to do another job, or maybe she wants to play this guitar.

But what we're going to do today is make a kitchen.

Think about what is in your kitchen.

I wonder, do you have a potbelly stove?

Probably not.

Do you want to put a stove in your kitchen?

Maybe.

I brought fabric so that I could do the fabric pieces, or pieces of a magazine pictures that have fabric.

I might hang up a fancy curtain in my window, or I might make the tablecloth a fancy color, or the clothing on my people kind of like I did with my jitterbug dancers.

They have dancing things.

Or we did print on our Faith Ringgold flying through the sky.

So I thought I'm going to use either a gray or black background, I might even put the green carpet on there.

Here is the rhyme: Bearden's kitchen where the gray cat lies is the perfect place to play I Spy.

Lie, spy, they both say I.

And the game of I Spy is also the game of object race, where you say, "I spy with my little eye "something that you can pour water or milk out of.

"What is it?"

And the person looks, and you don't point to it, and they say, "Are you talking about the pitcher?"

And I say yes.

So let me set these things down and get out my little table, so that we can see how to make a collage where we're going to cut and paste things for a kitchen.

Here's my little folder full of magazine papers.

I told you, I'm just saving it.

Once you get some colors together, just save it in a little folder and you'll be glad you did.

Stay here, I'm going to put my papers side to side, horizontally.

I brought my little folder with my green paper.

So I was just going to plan to cut it off to make the carpet for the flooring.

So I'm going to look at it.

It'll still have enough to hold my paper, but I think I'm going to glue it now so it won't slip away from me when I cut the part off.

So I'm going to put it on here for the floor, edge to edge, and rub it.

Now, wherever, it's going to be on this side, so wherever the green paper is, then I can snip, snip, snip.

Notice I'm not going in a hurry, and my thumb is on the top, and my fingers are underneath.

There we go.

Now I have my kitchen floor, and I have my kitchen background.

I think I'll start out by making the window.

And how I plan to do that is to just cut a skinny piece off the edge.

And it will be like a piece of lumber for myself.

And I'll think, how big do I want my window?

And I think I will put it, oh, right here.

I think I'll make it this big.

Remember, I always tell you to just pinch it over?

And I need two sides the same length, so I'm folding it over and cutting it like that.

I made a little part a little too fat, so I'm going to cut it off.

Now I open it up and snip on the fold.

I'm going to dry mount it here so that I can see how big I want my window.

Do I want it to look just like theirs?

Maybe I do.

Do I have enough gray paper?

Probably not.

So I'm going to cut another strip for my window frame.

Sometimes they call it a window sash.

Let me see.

I'm just going to put a little bit on the end and put it on my window frame, set it down.

How far over do I want it?

About that far.

Snip it.

I'm going to measure the other one so that it's the same distance.

I put it on top of it and snip it.

Move these scraps out of the way.

Okay, so that part goes there, and this part goes here.

Hmm, that works out well.

I rub it on my glue stick, put it on.

I can put both of these ends, 'cause that's what side I did it on.

And add the window sash.

I am going to choose my fabric.

It's really newspaper, I mean, a magazine picture for my curtains.

Put that there.

What color do I want for my kitchen curtains?

I'll look in this little part.

Oh, that one looks good.

Oh, I just saw something I liked.

Oh, that was Faith Ringgold's dress, I remember that.

Ooh, those look good.

I think I'll use the back of this.

And I'm going to cut this out and see how it fits in the window and see if it looks good there.

Oh, it really does!

Okay, I'll put it on the edge, edge and top.

'Cause I'm not gluing my window yet, so I don't want to get it too stuck there.

So my window will be there.

Now, what else do I want in my kitchen?

I really do want a gray cat, and I might just make it into a little oval and draw on it to make it a cat, because then it's just sitting in a little space.

I can put it like that.

Oh yeah.

And he really is just a little circle.

So I'm going to draw on his face.

And I know I need to add two triangle ears.

You can make any kind of cat.

I have my cat rolled up on a little ball, like it is in the picture.

And how I did that was put two ears, and I drew around the edge, and then that just becomes his tail that curls around his body.

And I'll put his two eyes, his triangle nose that has the point down.

'Cause the point down makes him have his little mouth.

It's enough for me.

I haven't made a table for him, but I might use this brown paper and just have him sit on the table.

The table would look like a little stool to me.

I'm going to put that in the corner, so that I have it ready to go.

If you want people in your picture, you can put people in.

If you just want to make your kitchen, just make the kitchen.

There's my cat, I'm going to put some legs on that table.

Maybe the legs'll be a pretty color.

Oh, I could use this pumpkin color for my legs or this gray pumpkin.

See how it has all these patterns I might use?

So I'm going to cut this and make two legs for my table.

Even though a table usually has four legs.

So I just want you to see the front of it.

Boys and girls, you know, this project is a long project.

A collage can take forever because you think, oh, maybe I want to a table with some vase of flowers on it.

So then you make that and they say, oh, that's not enough.

I think I want to make it this, Or I want to make it that.

So I'm going to make my table out of one of these colors with a tablecloth on it.

Oh, this is a beautiful tablecloth.

I'm going to make my table kind of round, because everything else seems so square in my picture.

I'll put my table here, I think I'll glue my window on so I don't lose it when it's time to clean up.

Tomorrow will be letter L. You cannot believe the picture I chose for L. It is something by Pablo Picasso.

It's a creature that lives in the ocean, and it has claws, and it's snippy snapping and scaring a cat and the picture.

I think you're going to find it to be super scary.

But what you'll need to bring is white paper, blue, black, white paint, something to mix your colors in.

'Cause we want to make the lobster all blue, like Pablo Picasso did.

Boys and girls, this was fun to start my collage with you.

I will keep working on it and show you next week.

I'll bring it back.

I think I'll make my legs kind of triangle legs.

Boys and girls, let's sing a Goodbye Song, and I'll just keep working on my collage while we sing.

♪ 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 ♪ Now notice I just keep putting the legs on here, putting things on, and when it's finished, I'll bring it back for you to see.

But I thought flowers might be good in my kitchen.

Just keep thinking of things you want to add.

And I made that so it stands on the ground.

Boys and girls, thanks for joining me today.

And I will see you tomorrow for letter L. Bye!

(upbeat guitar music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (upbeat guitar music)