World Cup Art (Brazil): Romero Britto Inspired Soccer Balls

OVERVIEW
The students will learn about Brazilian born artist, Romero Britto, and his pop art style of art. The students will learn about color and pattern, and will then create their own pop art on inflatable soccer balls!

MATERIALS

• “Colors Around the World” by Romero Britto
• 1 copy of soccer ball template for each student (below) 
• Pencils
• Colored pencils
• 1 inflated soccer ball for each student (orientaltrading.com) 
• Pump
• Colored Sharpie markers
• Black Sharpie markers

Introduction. 

The World Cup country that you are studying is Brazil. It is located in South America and was the host country of the 2014 World Cup! We are going to learn about a famous Brazilian artist, Romero Britto, and then we will be re-creating his artwork on a soccer ball to commemorate World Cup 2018!

ROMERO BRITTO was born the 6th of October in Recife, Brazil. He displayed signs of being an artist at a very young age and he taught himself art by painting on newspapers. Britto is a respected pop artist who is known for his vibrant colors and elements of cubism. Britto's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in over 100 countries, and his works sell for millions of dollars. Britto has created art for a number of corporations for their advertising, including a Britto car!

Aren’t those great cars?! What do you notice about them? What catches your eye?

Britto considers the role of an artist to be an agent of positive change. He serves as a benefactor, donating time, art and resources to over 250 charitable organizations and several boards such as Best Buddies International, and St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Romero is also an author of children's books:

Lesson.

Let’s take a closer look at Britto’s art. Britto’s style of art is called “pop art.” Why do you think it’s called “pop art?” 

Pop Art began in the 1950s, but became very popular in the 1960s. It started in the United Kingdom, but became a true art movement in New York City. Pop Art uses images that are popular in the modern world. This includes famous celebrities like movie stars and rock stars, commercial items like soup cans and soft drinks, comic books, and any other items that are popular in the commercial world. There are a number of ways that artists use these items to create art such as repeating the item over and over again, changing the color or texture of the item, and putting different items together to make a picture.

Let’s look a little closer at Britto’s art.

Britto creates patterns and dark, bold lines in his artwork, using bright colors. What makes something a pattern? How do the lines in the artwork help to break up a pattern? How do the colors work together in Britto’s artwork? [Show a few examples of patterns to get them started, and thinking outside the usual polka dots and stripes – stripes, squiggly lines, flowers].

Today we are going to create pop art on soccer balls using Romero Britto as our example. Look at the soccer ball – it has a pattern of hexagonal black squares already on it. We are going to fill in the white space with color and other patterns. But before we create on our World Cup soccer balls, we are going to use a printed soccer ball picture to get our ideas down on paper. 

Pre-Prep. Inflate soccer balls with pumps while lead is completing the lesson and the artists are sketching.

Step 1. Hand out a soccer ball template to each student. Have the students pull out their colored pencils and start putting their ideas on paper. Give them about 10 minutes to draw and think about how they want their soccer balls to look. Have the Britto books and examples of art available for the students to draw inspiration from.

Step 2. When the students have completed their ideas, hand out an inflated soccer ball to each of them. The students will be using Sharpie brush and/or chisel markers to create the background of their designs. Encourage the students to use lots of colors – we want these soccer balls to stand out! 

Step 3. After creating the background colors, have the students use black Sharpie markers to create their patterns. Patterns will be very important - encourage them to draw hearts, triangles, lines, etc. like Romero Britto! This isn't just coloring backgrounds, but making the patterns stand out!

Step 5. Make sure that the students sign their artwork!

Spring Flowers Romero Britto Style

Pop Art

Romero Britto Style

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc. In pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated material. The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.

Pop art often takes on its imagery that which is currently in use in advertising. Product labeling and logos figure prominently in the imagery chosen by pop artists, like in the Campbell's Soup Cans labels, by Andy Warhol. Even the labeling on the shipping box containing retail items has been used as subject matter in pop art, for example in Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Juice Box 1964.

With the 6^th graders, we discussed and looked at artwork from Andy Worhol, and discussed his impact on the Pop Art world. We also discussed a more current pop artist, Romero Britto.  Born 6 October 1963, is a Brazilian-American Neo-pop artist, painter and sculptor. He combines elements of cubism, pop art and graffiti painting in his work. Consistently challenging himself, Britto has completed many corporate works for Movado, Disney, Enrico Coveri, Pepsi, the United Nations, BMW and Royal Caribbean Cruises. Britto has one main art gallery in Miami, on South Beach, FL.

Our art lesson took on the elements of Pop Artist Romero Britto, emphasizing his loud, bright and colorful influence with bold shapes and lines.  We spent some time looking at Britto’s work discussing his use of color, lines and shapes. 

This lesson was created by our Art Coordinator using elements of Romero Britto’s work.  Using strong POWER WORDS (such as friendly, interesting, fun, social, athletic, etc) and INTEREST WORDS that describes their individual interests (such as soccer, math, reading, video, baseball, makeup, etc). Here we have artwork created by our 6^th grade artists!!

Materials:  Watercolor markers, Black Sharpies, 12 x 18 white cardstock, 12 x 18 black cardstock, scissors and pencil.

Medium: Black sharpies and watercolor markers.

Prep Time: Including the taking of pictures, formatting into a document all the images and having them printed. Gathering materials. 1 ½ hours total.Reason for Lesson:  Lesson addresses the Principle of Art as it relates to movement, and variety. The basic fundamental element of art used is line and color.

Preparation prior to lesson: 

This lesson can take a while to prep. Arrange to photograph each of the 6th grade students, could take one hour total. Take photos in black and white format OR change format to black and white post images. Create a document for each 6th grade class that includes a large 81/2 x 11 image of each student. Save on a USB and have it printed at Staples or Office Depot. Cost is approximately .10 per page printed. Submit receipt to Art A Baloo Leaders to reimbursement.

Instructions to lead lesson:
Discuss the concept of pop art. Features famous Pop Artists Andy Worhol and Romero Britto. The art lesson will take on the same affect as Romero Britto with bright color, dark lines and large shapes. Discuss the idea of lines and how they can be wide, thin, straight, curvy, dotted, etc.

Spend some time looking at Britto’s work and have the students point out, as a class, the features of Britto’s art…loud, bright, colorful. EMPHASIZE that the shapes and lines should be LARGE and LOUD to get the same effect as Romero Britto. Make sure the students MINIMIZE the use of small items on their drawing.

1. Provide a picture of each student (copied onto 8 1/2 x 11 paper) that was taken prior to the art lesson.
2. Have the students cut out their entire body and lay the piece on the bottom right hand side of the white paper. 
3. Trace around the picture so you have a starting point for the lines. 
4. With a pencil, create random lines beginning from different areas of the head and extending randomly to the edge of the paper.
5. Remove the picture and set it aside. 
6. Using a black sharpie, go over the pencil marking but NOT the outline of the head/body. 
7. Using the sharpie, begin creating random shapes and lines within the lined area. 

Create BIG, BOLD LINES and SHAPES. Add POWER WORDS and PERSONAL INTEREST WORDS randomly through the artwork.

Along with creating lines and shapes have the students add POWER WORDS to describe themselves. Help the class come up with POWER WORDS. Ideas: Funny, Smart, Kind, Fun, Social, Thoughtful, Friendly, Capable, Interesting, Crazy, Athletic, etc. Words that help describe their PERSONAL INTEREST WORDS. Examples: Soccer, Volleyball, Swimming, Music, iPod, iphone, makeup, Football, Softball, Baseball, Reading, Math, Video, drums, violin, instruments, singing, etc.

We will be cutting out the colored area and mounting colored area and ‘face’ on a black piece of construction paper.

Credit:  This lesson was created by PV Art Coordinator Deanna Haggerty with inspiration from artists Romero Britto and Andy Warhol.