Picasso's Dog
A WebQuest for Ages 8 - 13
Colleen Nelson - 2006
Updated March 12, 2007
Help!
The Humane Society is in trouble! They don't have enough money to pay the bills and they have too many homeless animals to care for!
You work for an art agency that is doing pro bono (free of charge) work for a nonprofit (the animal shelter) to help them survive.
It will be your mission to let the public know what they can do to help out. They can either donate money or volunteer time, or adopt animals. Your advertising will help save the day. And designing these posters will make you better artists as you find out what makes Artwork Work!
To get warmed up and show how much you enjoy being an artist, draw any animal you can imagine and write something to go along with it. You can use whatever colors you wish.
Using the internet to explore the cool stuff at the Library of Congress, you will investigate the work of other artists from across time and around the world as you learn to create posters that will appeal to animal lovers.
In the end, your posters will be used as an advertising campaign to encourage the public to adopt animals and donate money and time to help the humane society.
You will be part of a Dream Team of four artists that will create powerful posters that are both works of art and an advertisement. Your goal is to make dynamite posters that appeal to the public. In the end your team will make two posters, one for adopting and one for helping raise money for the shelter.
You will find a buddy in the group to work with. Since the team now has two pairs, one pair will use the Library of Congress to look for posters and lettering that really tell a story, the other pair will use the Library of Congress to find pictures and photos of cartoon and real life animals to draw from.
REMEMBER...
A successful advertisement needs to have a eye catching design with strong lettering and also show the kind of animals that will make the public want to help the Humane Society. You will learn by looking at the work of others and this will make what you draw that much stronger. It will be up to your team to find these parts and put them together for some dynamite advertising!!
So....this is what you'll do:
- First you'll become part of a dream team of great artists
- Decide among yourselves who will look at posters and find powerful lettering, and who will look for cartoons and and pictures of animals.
- You will go to the links provided and find images that appeal to you.
- Print what you have found and bring it back to the group so that everyone can decide what will become part of your finished posters.
- Members of the group will decide what the poster will say, what the animals will look like and what colors will go into the layout.
- Members will do their part to create the finished poster.
Follow Animal Links to find pictures of real and cartoon animals
Follow Lettering and Layout Links to find of posters and graphic designs
Rubric...not your average cube!
This is how you can tell what you have learned....
Beginning 1 |
Developing 2 |
Accomplish 3 |
Exemplary 4 |
Score |
|
Getting it right.... (Using Space to make Artwork WORK!!!) |
Did you just draw whatever you thought, without noticing how it fits on the page? | Did you think about where to put the lettering and the animal so that they were easy to read and see?
|
Did you put your lettering on the poster so that the message really stands out? Do you think your words will make people want to help the Humane Society? |
Were your letters fun to look at and easy to read and does your animal make the viewer want to help the Humane Society? | |
| Drawing & Design | Is your animal so small that it's hard to draw everything you want to draw on its face? Is your lettering so small that it's hard to read? |
Can you tell by the expression what your animal is trying to say? Are your letters drawn across the page evenly because you measured how they fit? |
Does the drawings of the words and the animals fit together as a good design? Did you learn new ways of drawing and lettering from what you found online?
|
Do the drawings jump out and grab your attention? Do the expressions on the animals' faces make you want to adopt them? | |
| Color it Cool | Do the colors seem smeared and too close together? Do the colors hide the words or the drawing? |
Do the colors make it easy to read what the poster is trying to say? Can you see the difference that color makes in the design?
|
Do the colors of the drawings and the letters work together so that everything can be clearly seen? Are there colors in the background? Did you find new ways to use color from looking at other art by other artists? |
Do the colors make your message stand out and say 'Read Me!' ???? Do the brightness and darkness of the colors add a special feeling to the poster? |
|
| Adding Style | Is this the way you've always drawn? | Have you tried to change something in your drawing or color that you saw in the art of others? | Did the change make your art more fun or interesting to look at? | Can you see that what you've drawn actually is your style with new colors and shapes added because you've learned new ways of drawing and design? | |
| Teamwork | Did you find it hard to make what you drew fit in with what others were drawing? | Did you tell others your ideas and listen to their ideas? | Did your group work together to make the poster really interesting? | Does the group agree that the best ideas and art were used to make a dynamite poster? |
Now to see what you've learned!
Draw any animal you can imagine and write something to go along with it. You can use whatever colors you wish. We'll compare it to the animal you drew when you first came to class. What are the differences? Can you point out some things you have learned about animals, lettering, composition and color? Can you now see what makes Artwork WORK??
Designed by Colleen Neson, 2006, cnelson@greenepa.net with Learning Palette Institute in partnership with An Adventure of the American Mind at Waynesburg College. Last updated November 7, 2006.
Template created April 2006 by Amy Martin, An Adventure of the American Mind at Waynesburg based on a template designed by Lisa Bradshaw, An Adventure of the American Mind - Colorado.
Many ideas for webquest content and worksheets were adapted by permission from An Adventure of the American Mind - Northern Virginia Partnership, Dr. Rhonda Clevenson, Director.