dinsdag 20 januari 2026

Valentine's hearts like Burton Morris

This is one of the most visited posts (and most copied 😉) posts of my blog: Valentine's hearts like Burton Morris.
In 2011 I received an email of the artist: he had googled himself and came across my lesson! How cool is that! 
During our USA trip in the summer of 2009, I visited the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta  and saw the artwork of Burton Morris for the first time: five paintings of cola bottles in pop-art style surrounded by light blue bubbles. So beautiful! Now I found a way to do this in school. And I think I'm the first blogger with a Morris lesson! 


Burton Morris (Pittsburgh, 1964) is an American pop-art artist. He is influenced by artists from the 60's and 70's, like Warhol, Lichtenstein and Haring. Morris's work shows a contemporary twist to traditional pop-art. His characteristic lines with the bright colors give his work a fantastic energy. Morris's work is known of tv-series like Friends and also appears in major advertising campaigns by U.S. companies like AT & T, Pepsi and Heinz.

What do you need?
  • construction paper several colors
  • black cardboard 20 by 20 cm
  • colored sheet 20 by 20 cm
  • scissors
  • glue
  • black thick marker
Before
Show artwork of Morris and discuss the features: bright colors, black outlines, little detail, movement by little lines, white lines that suggest light and the distinctive black star shape in or around much of his work. 

What should you do?
1. Take two colors cardboard: black for the rug and one for the background. 
2. Cut the edges of the background cardboard in a wavy shape, creating a kind of rug. 
3. Cut a large heart from colored construction paper. 
4. Cut some smaller hearts from several colors of construction paper. 
5. Cut white 'light lines' and paste them on the small hearts, all on the same side.
6. Paste the big heart on the cardboard rug. 
7. Paste the light lines on and around the heart.
8. Cut long triangles from the sides of the rug, the 'flashy stripes'. 
9. Paste the rug on the black cardboard.
10. Paste the small hearts around the big heart. 
11. Outline the hearts with a black marker.
12. Cut the black background away, leaving about 2 mm on the edges.
13. Paste the work on a colored sheet and cut it into a square.
Also like Burton Morris is this lesson about pumpkins.
Works of art made by students of grade 5 and 6.  

11 opmerkingen:

  1. Just a quick note to let you know that a link to this post will be placed on CraftCrave today [03 Feb 12:00am GMT]. Thanks, Maria

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  2. Thanks for introducing a new artist to my repertoire - great ideas!

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  3. What a wonderful idea--I love it!! Thank you for sharing.

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  4. Zo leuk! Ook een interessante artiest! Ik probeer dit vandaag uit :-)

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  5. Thank you for this great project. I will be doing this with my older group tomorrow

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  6. A lovely project which my class thoroughly enjoyed - we credited you! http://aroomwithaview.edublogs.org

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  7. Thank you for the great lesson. I did it in 5th grade today and it was a huge hit!

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  8. Thank you! My students loved this and we are the talk of the school!

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