1. Faith Ringgold Story Quilts
4th Grade Art Project
Northwood Elementary PTA Art Enrichment Program

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3. Lesson Overview Grade: 4 culminating project
Name of Lesson: Faith Ringgold
Medium: oil pastel/water color/collage
Time : lesson is approximately 1 ½- 2 hours. Ideally it would be two 1 hour sessions.
Volunteers: 2-3 
Project Overview/Skills:
Students will learn about the work and life of Faith Ringgold and then draw a picture similar to the work in her book “Tar Beach”. They will add color to their drawing with two mediums and then mount it onto a decorative quilt border.

4. Story Quilt Materials Needed
Materials/Home Preparation:
Oil pastels
Precut 1 ½”-2” squares of colored, patterned paper (wallpaper, scrapbook paper, art paper) If no paper is pre-cut for you it takes 40 minutes to cut all the paper for this lesson. Leave ample time.
Water colors
Brushes
White drawing paper cut to 8 1/2” x 5 1/2”
Bright blue construction paper cut to size (about 3” larger than the white paper both directions)
Red Construction paper cut to size (about 1 ½” larger than the blue paper both directions)
Pencils
Fine sharpies
Glue (glue stick works but does not last, try better tacky glue)
Post-Lesson
the Parent Letter for this lesson to your room parent (available on the PTA website under ”Art Docent Volunteer Resources”) and ask your room parent to forward it to the class. The letter gives the parents context for the lesson their student completed and this step helps ensure on-going support of the Northwood PTA Art Docent program!

5. Art Lesson Quilting
As a child, she was taught to sew fabrics creatively by her mother, a professional fashion designer;
She had also been taught to make quilts by her great-great-grandmother.
Ringgold's great-great-great grandmother had been a slave in her younger years, and made quilts for her white masters.
There has been a strong African-American quilt-making tradition, influenced by the weaving done by the men in Africa, and brought to America with the slaves, where women continued the tradition.
Quilts in the African-American slave community served various purposes: warmth, preserving memories and events, and storytelling.
In the 1970's, Ringgold continued to use her art to tell her own story, and in collaboration with her mother, began to sew fabric borders around her paintings, instead of stretching the canvas over wooden stretchers in the traditional manner.

6. Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold is an African-American artist and author who was born in Harlem, New York, in 1930.
She received a degree in art education from the City College of New York.
She received an MA from the college in 1959.
When she graduated, she began teaching art in the New York City public schools
Faith Ringgold is an African-American artist and author who was born in Harlem, New York, in 1930.
She received a degree in art education from the City College of New York.
She received an MA from the college in 1959.
When she graduated, she began teaching art in the New York City public schools

7. Ringgold’s Blood Red Sky

8. Ringgold’s Sunflowers at Arles

9. More Recently
She is best known for her "painted story quilts," some of which hang in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
Tar Beach, Ringgold's first book for children, won the Coretta Scott King Award for illustration and was named a Caldecott Honor Book.
Ringgold is now a professor of art at the University of California at San Diego. She lives in California and in New Jersey.

10. Tar Beach
Inspired by people who have overcome adversity, Faith Ringgold creates picture books for children that celebrate freedom, courage, and peace.
Through the character of 8-year-old Cassie Lightfoot in Tar Beach and Aunt Harriet's Underground Railroad in the Sky, Ringgold takes young readers on a flight through time and introduces them to famous people and events in American history.
In Tar Beach, through her dreams and her ability to fly, Cassie makes things better for her family during the Great Depression.

11. Today’s Project – Story Quilts
The project today will be based Faith Ringgold’s story quilt art.
You will be creating your very own story quilt with a picture and words that describe YOU!

12. Step 1 – create your drawing
Place your white paper in a portrait position
Using pencil, draw a picture of your flying over buildings
Use oil pastels to add color to the figure and buildings.
Leave the negative space blank including sky to fill in with water color in a later step.

13. Step 2 – words that describe who you see yourself becoming
Think about “Who do you want to be next year as the oldest students and leaders in the school”
Using pencil, write the words you choose around the border of your drawing
When completed, trace words with a Sharpie. Have a friend or adult check the spelling before you use the Sharpie!
Helpful Tips
It is a good idea to show all the steps on the white board during the project so students moving thru the project at different speeds will know the steps and be able to following them independently.
Write many of the brainstormed words on the board so students can share words and get the correct spelling.

14. Step 3 – adding color
Use watercolor to create a light wash of a single color to fill in all the remaining background (sky) areas leaving no white paper showing.
The oil pastel should resist the watercolor and the Sharpie will show through.

15. Step 4 - Mount the quilt
Mount the drawing on bright blue construction paper that is about 2” larger than the white paper on all sides.
Mount the blue paper to the red construction paper and paste squares of patterned paper around the edge to make a ‘quilt’ border.
The quilt border should completely cover the red paper so the patterned paper size needs to exactly match the red border you leave showing.

16. Step 5 - Sign your artwork!
Very neatly print your name and the current year in the corner of the blue paper below the drawing.