Holiday Parody American Gothic Ornament/Card!

2nd graders had a good laugh and learned about the famous painting "American Gothic". We learned that American Gothic was a milestone for the Iowan artist Grant Wood, and was accepted to be part of the collection at the Chicago Art Institute (I showed a picture of myself taken with the actual painting). We even revealed some fun facts about the painting: The 'farmer' in the painting infact is no farmer at all, but Grant Wood's dentist who posed with costume, and the 'farmwife' is in fact Grant Wood's sister "Nan" that posed for the painting. "American Gothic" gets it's name in relation to the center window on the farmhouse because it's a Gothic architectural window.

I let students know that no worries if you don't celebrate
Christmas holiday. Turn your American Gothic into a Mr. and Mrs. Frosty snowman!

Then we looked at some hilarious student renditions of their own holiday or winter themed parody. I randomly fell upon an image search which led me to pictures of students work on a website, so I wish I could take credit for this originalty, but can't! However, pass this on because the students love it! We looked at each of the students' examples and talked about how you would go about making it, what they used, and what changes were evident from the original "American Gothic". We talked about all the possibilities for materials. Oil pastels give good solid coverage on a copy along with markers, color pencils are great for detail and are nice and bright along with crayons.



love the giant bell instead of a pitch fork! Clever!



I shrunk down a copy to about 5 1/2" x 6 1/2" and washed out the copy a bit. Then I cut a bunch of holiday color (blues, greens, reds, yellows) construction paper (to glue to the back before paper punching to make into an ornament if they chose) and also made copies of a 'clothing template' so they could cut out the template and trace on scrap construction paper to glue on and size clothes easier.



I lolve the sequin earring and detail scarf in the pocket!

After coloring in everything and adding detail to the background, students cut out the American Gothic. Then glued a piece of the same size construction paper to the back. I encouraged students to write the date and/or a holiday greeting to transform it into an ornament or card/present. I had ribbon, yarn, sequins, and cotton balls out to pull apart for faux fur fluff!



tracing the 'clothing' template on scrap blue paper