Jasper Johns takes Flag Day and 4th of July

This project was originally done incongruence with Flag Day, but I found it fitting to share on the 4th of July.  The community where I teach is very military oriented as Offut Air Force Base is located here.  The majority of my students have some sort of military tie so they always love doing these patriotic type lessons because they are excited to give it to a family member that is or was in the military.  

What better artist to talk about other than Jasper Johns?  

Students were to pick out 6-7 words that described "who they are." They found and spelled the words using magazine clippings, giving the project a sense of identity.  

I gave students this prompt: "If the President of the United States asked you to create a new design for the American Flag what would it look like?"  Using sandpaper students pressed hard and colored with crayon to create the flag.  We used a faux-encasutic technique by ironing the sandpaper on top of the white collaged paper.

Students were then asked to write the reasoning and meaning behind their new design.  In the end, they created two pieces of art one from the sandpaper and the second from the wax crayon transfer onto the white collage.

 See the inspiration for this lesson here.