Charlie Harper's Birds

“I just count the wings, not the feathers”

The art created by the minimalist artist, Charley Harper, is appreciated worldwide for it's simplicity and unique style.  Charley Harper had an alternative way of looking at nature.

His serigraphs are large expanses of rich color which give the viewer a very different perspective on the animal kingdom. 

A conservationist as well as an artist, Harper revealed the unique aspects of his wildlife subjects through highly stylized geometric reduction.

Fifth grade students explored the art of Charley Harper and chose one of his many bird works to recreate. They were assigned with identifying and matching color for color the inks used in Harper's works and finding corresponding papers.  

They were challenged with solving the problem of how to layer their papers to create the same image as Harper. It forced them to examine the issue of deconstruction of a work and reconstruction one piece of the image at a time.

They were allowed to take a basic black and white version of Harper's bird and cut out the shapes in order to minimize measuring and shape creation.

When finished with paper layering, they were provided with their original black and white image once again (their first one had been cut to shreds) and challenged to insert the clean black lines found in Harper's works. As you can see, the finished products are beautiful!