Music Inspired Designs

Red Hands by Walk Off the Earth

Who isn’t inspired by music?  It certainly works for me...and for my students, too! This project is a fun way to use music to create art. 

1. I ask students to choose a song that has a strong visual appeal with phrases that paint pictures in their minds.  They take the lyrics to the song and use them as inspiration to create a design that is 8” x 8”.

As we work on these designs we talk about composition and balance.  I encourage them to overlap the various elements of their design and make sure their eye moves through the piece with the addition of diagonal lines. 

Girl on Fire by Alicia Keyes

2.  After their design is completed, I give them a piece of 8” x 8” tracing paper and they trace their design onto it. 

3.  Then comes the confusing part for students (although it shouldn’t be).  I ask students to turn their tracing paper OVER and scribble on the back wherever they see a line. (Put a piece of scratch paper under the tracing paper to limit the smudging.)  I tell them NOT to scribble all over the whole thing because it makes a huge mess on their artwork.  I explain that we are putting graphite on the back of our designs so when they go to trace, the pressure from their pencil will transfer their designs to the paper.  For some reason, this never makes sense until they do it themselves.  Then the light comes on…”Oh! I get it!” :-)

Roar by Katy Perry

4.  I give students a piece of 16” x 16” paper and ask them to make a line down the middle both vertically and horizontally to make four squares on their paper (which are, of course, 8” x 8” - fabulous arithmetic!)

5.  Then the tracing marathon begins!  This part gets a bit tedious, but the resulting work is worth the effort!  Students trace their design (with the scribbled side of the tracing paper facing DOWN) in one square and then make a quarter turn and trace again, continuing to make quarter turns until all four squares are filled.

Georgia Peaches by Lauren Alaina

6.  These artworks are colored with colored pencil in strong, bold colors. Some students color every square exactly the same.  Others choose to change one small area in each square, and still others color diagonal squares the same so they have two color schemes in the artwork. 

7.  Before students turn in their project, I ask them to include the lyrics to their song on the back so I can see where they are coming from and what inspired them.

Thunderstruck by AC/DC

Since we all love music, this project is fun to share.  We get into good discussions and share new music with each other.  Nothing more fun than bonding with the kids!

Happy Singing…and Creating! :-)