Subway Art with Keith Haring!

Katie Allen
Feb 7, 2016
2 min read

Welcome back! In this class we explored the art of Keith Haring! While we waited for everyone to arrive, I gave the artists a warm-up activity to get them thinking and in an artist state of mind. It is just a simple worksheet asking them to draw examples of lines, examples of how to show emotion with line and color, and using both line and color to show movement.

We then looked at a PowerPoint presentation I made about Keith Haring. We looked at how he created his art in the subway system with a piece of chalk, painted large murals on the sides of buildings, and made artwork that he sold in galleries as well. We took time looking at images of his work and thinking about what his simplified figures were doing, what the artwork might mean, and what it meant to them.

Then we made our own Keith Haring puppets! I found this template online here:

http://www.christyhale.com/Haring_workshop.pdf

I cropped out everything but the template and made several copies on one sheet of paper so it would be cost efficient to reproduce. Unfortunantley, the artists did have some trouble cutting out the little shapes and poking the fasteners through the tiny limbs. If I had to go back and redo the activity, I would make the puppets a little bit larger! After the puppets were assembled, we traced our puppets in different poses onto a piece of paper and then outlined them in sharpie marker. We did not have enough time to color our pictures, but they got to take home their puppets and work so they could finish it at home.

We had to hurry onto our next activity before class ended and that meant we had to get the subway! We boarded the car (use your imagination) with our chalk (sharpie) and moved quickly around the room and in the hallway until we came to our stop- the life size pieces of paper taped to their floor. This would be the perfect place to draw our graffiti artwork! Artists had to find a partner to quickly trace their body onto the paper and then help their partner. Once they had their outline done, they had to select a color to paint their picture. We had to move quickly like Haring though- it was fun to see and hear the artists talking to each other about being quick like Haring or they would get in trouble.

After their figure was painted they needed to paint a black outline and add their lines to make it look like they were moving or talking. Here are some examples of the students work, and just so you are aware, these were painted in under a half hour! The students did a great job!