Grade 1: Jasper Johns Number Paintings

I have blogged about my annual Jasper Johns 1st grade paintings in the past but wanted to share with you a few from this year. We made these back in January but this year, I saw a post where an unknown art teacher from Pinterest had the kids use their date of birth for the numbers instead of the classic 0-9 from Jasper Johns' famous painting. This was a neat new spin on one of my favorite American paintings. My first graders felt special thinking about their special day in numbers. We called their DOB their top secret code.

We explored primary colors through painting and ultimately we refreshed our memory about secondary colors as little bits mixed together. Students began drawing their numbers inside of rectangles followed by outlining and designing with oil pastels and finally tempera in the backgrounds.

0-9 by Jasper Johns

American Painters Rock!

Jasper Johns

I've liked Jasper Johns' work for a while now but this is the first elementary project we've done based on his work.
He's known for his American encaustic (hot wax dripping) 'Flag' and my favorite 'Numbers..'

In the past year or so, Jasper Johns was honored by the White House for his contributions in the art world.
We also share the same "JJ" initials. He has a fairly large amount of work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Ok, now to the project.
2nd graders reviewed primary and secondary colors and we practiced single digit block letters filling a vertical page.
We wanted to keep the primary colors from mixing together so that we did not end up with secondary colors.


Here are students working: