Glover Artists: Abstract Names

Cecil Touchon is a contemporary American artist whose body of work includes collage, painting and poetry. His typography abstractions are especially interesting, forcing your eye and mind to slow down and admire the lines and shapes of letters.

Contemporary artist: Cecil Touchon

Fourth grade students started their lesson by observing a sampling of Touchon's work and together we talked about abstraction. We agreed that abstract art breaks aways from the typical representation of objects and explores the relationship of color, form and meaning. I presented students with the idea of deconstructing their name to mimic a Touchon artwork and they were rearing to go!

The first step was figuring out how many boxed areas was needed for their composition. Students were asked to write out their name (and potentially include an important date if they needed a few extra boxes) and count each letter and number. This then became their goal number of boxes needed to fill their composition. Next, students practiced their ruler skills by creating a horizontal line across their paper. I modeled how to section off the paper into different size boxes until each student had their goal number. The next step was to begin filling in each box with one letter or number. Students had the difficult task of making sure each letter touched a minimum of three sides. This was important so the letter and numbers filled the box and became less recognizable and more abstract.