Video: Jasper Johns (Part 1)

﻿Hi and welcome to "Identity: Who am I?" This is lesson one of 12 and today we're going to be looking at Jasper Johns, and that is lesson one of two lessons where we'll be looking at the artist. So who is Jasper Johns? How can his artwork influence my own? And what skills do I need to create a Jasper Johns inspired piece of artwork? That is the key things that we're going to be looking at today. So who is Jasper Johns? Jasper Johns is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born in 1930. His work has been associated with abstract expressionism and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related topics. Consider the characteristic or characteristics of this painting, and also think about what I just said about he's known for his depictions of painting the American flag and other US topics. What do you think pop art is about? Pause the video and consider. Okay, so when I said characteristics, what I mean by that is what does the painting feature? What colours are in the painting? What medium's been used? So is it paint, collage, oil pastel? What types of colours? How is it drawn? It is a fine detailed drawing? Or is it quite an expressionate piece of work? This is very true to some of the characteristics of pop art where it uses lots of primary and bold colours and it's quite simple in its forms. Pop art is a movement where it celebrates popular culture, so some of the artists that you might know would be Andy Warhol, and he was famous, very famous, but one of his most known pieces of artwork is a drawing of a tin of soup which is really kind of iconic bit of an Americana. This is the alphabet and again, it's just a very simple idea that has been painted using bold, primary colours and that is one of the true characteristics of pop art, the bold, primary colours. Have a look at this painting. Jasper Johns makes lots of bold and expressive marks when using paint. What other mediums are good for expressive mark making? Pause the video and consider. So expressive mark making means that it's almost a lot of mess. It's sloshing it on the page and it's being really kind of fluid and creative, just going with it. It's almost like a dance when you kind of expressive mark make is how I imagine it. So I don't suppose you do expressive mark making with a pencil or anything too delicate. What you might do some expressive mark making with would be paint. It'd also be kind of charcoal, oil pastels, things that can get really messy, that you don't necessarily have to be too delicate about. A pencil, if you're too expressive, it'll just break, especially the mechanical kind. So kind of oil pastels... Yes, they break, but you just pick it up again and you use the other stub of the pencil. So you need to be thinking about what other mediums you can use to make some really expressive marks. So now we've considered Jasper Johns' techniques and style, we can begin our own Jasper Johns inspired piece of work. We're going to create an artwork inspired by Jasper Johns' style of using lettering and expressive mark making. Take your time when making the artwork as it's not a case of just getting it done, but it's a case of doing it to the best of your ability. If you need to practise, then please do so, because this is about developing your skills to create something new and original. If you need to pause the video and watch it again, then please do, cause you want to make some work that you can be really proud of. So resources, you're going to need the following, paper, paint, some card, some scissors, and optional, your name or initials printed in bold. You don't need this but you can have it, especially if you're not very good at kind of block or bubble writing then you want to do that. Pause the video, go and get your resources, and then come back. Okay, so let's go through my demonstration video. I have just a plain piece of paper and a tray of paints. These are gouache paints but that's just what I had to hand and I've also got some water paints as well. You can use whatever you like, any kind of wet medium, so any kind of paint, water paint, you can use ink, and what I'm doing is I'm trying to just make as many marks as I can. I'm not being particularly careful. I'm not putting a great deal of thought into it, but what I am thinking about is my colour palette. So I'm thinking about how the colours mix together. So I know that red and blue makes purple, and I know that blue and yellow makes green so you can see that as I swipe it, I'm hoping to get green to mix in, and I'm using a ruler to swipe through this because I think a paintbrush would be a bit too delicate and I can make some really kind of bold and different marks with a ruler, but you can use a piece of cardboard or a folded up piece of paper as well to have a similar effect. I am adding some other colours, so I'm adding some more purple and I added quite a bit of paint. I'm being quite thick with it. So I've just done this really small A5 so I don't waste too much paint cause if it's too big, then I'll end up using all the tubes and I won't be able to do it again. But really all I'm doing here is I'm experimenting. So I'm blotting and I'm scraping and I'm twirling it through and I'm not really putting too much thought into it or having much of a care in the world. All I want to do is experiment and see what different kinds of marks I can make. When you do this, you really should try not to be too neat. I know it's really hard to get out of that mindset where you always try to do something perfect. Try not to. What I would recommend you do is barely look at it, at what you're grabbing to hand. Just get some stuff and see where it goes. Other than the fact that you should be using primary colours initially, just to see how the colours mix, don't worry about the colours otherwise. I've used a paintbrush now just to fill in the gaps and I've added some water to that paintbrush so my paints can blend together so I can see how I can mix different colours. That's just another thing that I thought I might do to experiment, but I'd love to know what you can do to experiment as well. I'm creating like an almost ombre effect where I can go from light to dark with the paints just by adding water and not anymore paint. Here I am just adding some more paint and I'm about to grab some white because it ended up being quite murky and blurring together so it ended up just being a bit blue and almost brown, and I thought the white would be a really bold way of carrying on with the expressive marks, so I've got some more expressive marks that I managed to add. Okay, so now it's your turn to make a mess. Pause the video and complete the task. Don't necessarily just do one. You can if you'd like, but you can do four, five, six or 10, however many you'd like to do, because you can put them altogether at the end and it'll be really effective. This should take you around about an hour. In the next lesson, we're going to be looking at the types of media used by Jasper Johns and adding further details and textures to our own artwork. Remember, share your work with the Oak National cause I really would love to see it, and take time at the end of the lesson to complete the quiz.

Exit Quiz: Jasper Johns (Part 1)

Lesson summary: Jasper Johns (Part 1)

In this lesson we are going to be experimenting with textures and media.

Art & Design

Y9 Art & Design

Key Stage 3

Year 9

When was Jasper Johns born?

Jasper John's work was associated with which art movements?

Jasper Johns was a...

Where is Jasper Johns from?

Jasper Johns - Experimenting with textures and Media: Quiz 1

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