I believe her name is spelled Birch. I do a lesson with my first graders
using her cat artworks (I bought a book with all cats). We discuss
patterns and design, shape (the cat) and style (noting the ways she draws
the eyes etc..) They draw a large cat, as big as or even going off the
paper (which is tricky for grade 1, but we've already done O'Keeffe by
then) We practice several different poses we could draw the cat in-
sitting, standing, lying down - I draw them on the board -with the kids'
"help", and leave them there as reference. We outline with sharpie, cat
and details of face/paws. Then we use Crayola Overwriters to fill in
stripes of color and create patterns on top. We choose one single color
(regular marker) to color the background. I have done this using
cray-pas/H2Ocolor resist too. The kids love them, very successful, and
lots of fun. They look beautiful!
I'm glad to hear others are using her work as well. Contemporary artists
are so important to include! I remember going to grade school and
wondering why all artists are dead?! I thought it was history, like the
revolution, and it was over!!! I'm glad I learned otherwise, later on!!!
:-)
