Share photos of abstract impressionist paintings with your students. Try the work of Morris Louis, suggests Anne Young in "School Arts" magazine. Ask them what they see. Discuss how different people see different things in the paintings and then let the students create abstract impressionist works by making coffee filter monoprints.
Give each student a coffee filter. Using water-based markers, have them cover the filters with random shapes and lines. Tell them not to draw or make the shapes look like anything specific. Lay the completed coffee filters marker-side down on absorbent white paper. Brush water onto the filters, and then lay a second sheet of paper on top. Help the students use brayers to transfer the marker ink from the coffee filters to the white paper beneath.
Tell your fourth-graders about narrative art that tells a story. Share some examples, such as cave painting and Aboriginal dream paintings, and end with story quilts. Share some photos of story quilts by former slave Harriet Powers.
Select a theme for a class story quilt made of paper instead of cloth, suggests Kathleen A. McArdle in "School Arts" magazine. Her students made a paper quilt illustrating holiday celebrations. Other possible themes include hobbies, favorite books and family life. Give the students white paper squares and have them cut shapes from construction paper to glue onto their quilt blocks. Instruct them to keep the shapes simple and bold. Outline each construction paper shape with a broken black line to mimic thread. Once the students finish their quilt blocks, mount them all in a grid on a solid black background shaped like a quilt.
Petroglyphs -- a form of Native American rock art -- are images scratched into cliff sides and boulders. Typically, petroglyphs are stained with a black varnish-like, according to Cynthia Henn in "School Arts" magazine. Though the petroglyphs are assumed symbolic, their meanings haven't been discovered. Share petroglyph photos and have the students brainstorm about the possible meanings behind the images.
Instruct your students to design their own symbolic images, and then create modern-day petroglyphs from plaster. Mix the plaster in shoe-box lids. While it's wet, color it to resemble stone. Once the plaster dries, bang the edges against the floor or table to make it look more naturally formed. Paint the plaster rocks with black paint to mimic the petroglyph varnish, and then engrave their symbolic images with nails of various sizes.
Though he painted during the 16th century Renaissance period, some consider Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo the first surrealist. In the bizarre portraits for which he's best known, Arcimboldo created recognizable likenesses of his subjects using vegetables, animals, plants, flowers or other objects.
Show your students examples of Arcimboldo's work and help them create Arcimboldo-inspired self portraits. Take profile photos of your students. Enlarge and trace just the silhouettes onto drawing paper, using an overhead projector. Instruct your students to create their features with the object type of their choice. Remind them of Arcimboldo's choices and also suggest contemporary objects such as shoes or technological gadgets. Caution them not to merely fill in the space, but to use the shapes of their objects to create the likeness, suggests Nerina Patane, who designed the lesson plan for Princeton Online's Incredible Art Department.