Picasso’s Peace Flowers

Objective: We will create an artwork that shows 2 friends with different skin colors being kind to each other.

Day 1:
Read Shades of People or another book that discusses skin colors. I like this book because it says that our skin is like wrapping paper and we are all gifts.

Discussion Questions: What is skin color? What color is your skin? Do we all have the same skin color? Does our skin color make us special/beautiful/unique? Why is skin color important? Why do you think the author said that our skin color is like wrapping paper? Is it easy or hard to talk about our skin color? Why?

Art Activity: Today we are going to paint 3 different skin colors. Students will trace their hand and arm 3 times. They may choose a different paint color for each hand. This gets them used to representing and using skin colors in their artwork that are different from their own.

Day 2:
Show Picasso’s Bouquet of Peace and ask students what they see. Usually at least one student will notice that it looks like a friend is giving another friend flowers. I tell them it’s kind of hard to tell that it’s a different person at first because Picasso left out their skin color, but in our artwork we will know that it is two different people because the hands will have different skin colors. I tell them that our artwork is also going to show one friend giving something special to another friend, just like Picasso’s artwork. (We did flowers just like Picasso, but if you want to give your students more choice they could come up with their own special gift.) I also read Todd Parr’s “The Peace Book” to them on this day. Optional discussion questions: Why do you think Picasso didn’t add in skin color? What is peace? Why is it important to be a good friend? How can you show your friend you love them?

Art Activity: Use oil pastels to draw a bouquet. Glue hands down to show one friend giving another friend flowers.

I loved this lesson because It’s so important that students see visually that they can be friends with and show love to people who have a different skin color than them. To learn more about Picasso’s Peace Flowers go here: http://www.pablopicasso.net/bouquet-of-flowers/

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you see a way I can improve this lesson. I want to listen, learn, and grow.

Lesson inspired by @createwithmsd

Learn more about this lesson here.

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