The Jasper Johns Game: How to Draw Abstraction with Rob the Art Teacher

In the 1960s, Jasper Johns, the American abstract expressionist and Pop artist started making art with numbers and letters. He imported these objects into his art by drawing them top of each other, thus building up a network of lines and shapes. Layering the numbers or letters was a way of abstracting them. The Jasper Johns Game follows his method, step-by-step, to help students and artists experiment with Johns’ style of abstraction.

TEACHERS: This is a great ‘filler’ activity, or a fun contest for groups or teams, or you can make it the basis of a whole lesson to introduce the artist Jasper Johns, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Composition, and / or Abstraction.

PICTURE CREDITS:

This art lesson is inspired by the artist Jasper Johns (b.1930) and shows some examples of his work. Johns is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with Abstract Expressionism, Neo-Dada, and Pop Art.

Jasper Johns, 0 through 9, 1960, lithograph
https://collections.artsmia.org/art/5...

Jasper Johns, Alphabet, 1969, lithograph, The Met
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect...

Jasper Johns, 0 through 9, 1961, painting, Tate
https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publ...

SOUNDS:

This video uses school playground sounds from Zapsplat.com


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Rob Garrett is an accomplished art teacher, writer, and curator. With fine art and art history degrees from leading New Zealand Universities, he is a qualified teacher with experience teaching art to all ages, having worked in primary (elementary) schools, high schools, and higher education art schools (academies), including a time as the Head of New Zealand’s oldest art school, in Dunedin. His public service includes periods as a senior manager of arts development and as a Council member (governance) with New Zealand’s arts council. His international work with artists has included directing and establishing artist residency programmes, managing New Zealand’s presence at the 2005 Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art, and curating numerous public art exhibitions, festivals, and city-wide programs.