Project: Drip Like Jackson Pollock

As summer approaches, I'm going to include some simple art-and museum-based projects you can do with your children at home.  Today's is inspired by Jackson Pollock's drippy, splatter-filled paintings--fun and messy at the same time.  Great for all ages!

First, a bit about Jackson Pollock. He was born in Wyoming and went to art school in New York. Pollock didn't want to paint like other artists who applied paint to canvases on easels with brushes.  Nor did he want to paint pictures of recognizable or identifiable people, places, or things. In fact, he was so interested in abstraction that he would even title his paintings with numbers to avoid any suggestion of representation!  And so, he developed a kind of painting style, known as "action painting" or "drip painting" where he would lay the large canvas on the ground of his studio and work from all sides of it throwing, pouring, and splattering thin paint to create his art.  In 1949, he was featured in Life magazine, which asked, "Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?"   He died in a car crash in 1956, but his art hangs in many museums and has been featured in several exhibitions. See the Museum of Modern Art website for several examples of his art (which is copyrighted).

1. Now get out your art supplies:

• washable paints in separate containers
  
• brushes, sponges, balls in socks, chopsticks, whatever you have, ideally one for each color
  
• very large sheet of paper, posterboard, or even a white sheet (kids can work together or separately, your choice)

2.  Set up everything outside.  Doing it on the grass is ideal but a driveway, sidewalk, or deck/porch will work.  If you hang the paper on a fence, the paint will drip down creating a nice effect, but Pollock often worked with the paper flat on the ground.  Be sure to anchor it against any wind until the artwork is dry.

3.  Start slinging paint.  Throw, drip, splatter, pour.  Experiment with different arm and body movements--fast, slow, high, low.  No wonder this is called "action painting."  Cover the whole paper in different colors.

4.  Leave out to dry.  

5.  Exhibit your art--put it on the wall, cut it into pieces and laminate for placemats, use as a tablecloth (if fabric).  Create a wall label describing how you made it and when.  

6.  If possible, on your next rainy day, head to a museum or your internet connection to see examples of the paintings of Pollock and other Abstract Expressionist artists.