Sue Liedke

Every time I encounter a Mickalene Thomas painting in person, I’m struck by the scale and mesmerized by the sparkly additions that adorn her powerful female subjects. I was excited to see that my students shared my enthusiasm when I presented some of her (age-appropriate) artworks via our trusty classroom projector.

As I showed them images of Thomas’s paintings, students took turns sharing their reactions and questions about her work and the artist:

“High heels!”

“Even bigger than us!”

“Did she use glitter?”

“She’s famous and has beautiful things and sparkly things in her house.”

Collaborative Art-Making
I explained to students that we’d be making a collaborative painting inspired by the work of Mickalene Thomas, so we first needed to identify some themes. They were quick to determine that Thomas’s paintings feature strong women of color. Maybe they were even… princesses? By showing them some pictures of her work in situ, the scale and scope of her paintings became apparent as well. We were going to need a BIG canvas.

Brainstorming
While our canvas was prepared, we began brainstorming our heroine, who would be featured larger than life on our makeshift canvas. Students drew sketches of powerful women on drawing paper, and I narrowed it down to a few options that would work well for this project. I was looking for one with strong, easy-to-paint shapes that allowed for plenty of fun appliqués to be added. Students chose an image to work with (by one of our illustrious almost-five-year-olds, Karissa), and we enlarged it using the projector. I traced the lines, and students got to work with their paintbrushes over the next few art classes.

The result was a powerful large-scale piece celebrating materials often considered craft, and one in which every student could see their own hand.

Painting Our Heroine
I tried to keep three or four students painting at a time. We began by painting the background, and they chose greenish blues for these spaces. While some painted more carefully than others, the empty spaces surrounding our subject soon were filled in.

During a subsequent art class, we painted our heroine, filling in her dress, arms, legs, face, and hair. I was able to observe students taking extra care with these jobs, making sure coverage was complete and lines were mostly followed.

Nontraditional Embellishments
The paint dried, and we moved on to the most fun part of the process. We watched a Smithsonian American Art Museum video where Thomas speaks about using craft materials and “nontraditional materials considered maybe, for some, a low art.” She also notes that there’s a “high art” aspect as well, in seeing the way outsider artists have used and approached craft supplies in their work. (See Resource.)

While these “big” ideas might not have resonated with every student in the room, I still think it’s valuable for them to hear about tools and supplies—straight from the artist. The supplies we used included sparkles, gems, patterned paper, and fabric scraps, with the additions of silk flowers, broken jewelry parts, seashells, and other art room ephemera.

A Heroine for All
For many class periods, students took turns strategically adding to our princess, who became known as “Princess Super Sparkle.”

“Oh yeah, I put on a watch, because I thought it would be pretty. She might need to know the time, and she might not know where the clock is.”

They slowly created a backstory of her hobbies and strengths, and maybe even her powers.

“An old paintbrush, ʼcause she’s an artist like me.”

The result was a powerful large-scale piece celebrating materials often considered craft, and one in which every student could see their own hand.

Sue Liedke is an art teacher at Settlement Music School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and a contributing editor for SchoolArts. susanliedke@gmail.com