DALE CHIHULY
(chee-OO-lee)
1941- Present
“Imagine blowing a soap bubble that lasts forever. For me, that’s the excitement of
blowing glass.”
DALE CHIHULY
Grades K-2 PowerPoint Lesson Plan
OBJECTIVES
HISTORY: Places an artwork in its art historical context.
Students discuss how glass has transitioned from use as utilitarian objects to use as art
forms and a means of self expression.
CRITICISM: Informed talk about art.
Students identify colors which create a mood in an artwork.
AESTHETICS: Questions the nature, value and beauty of art.
Students compare the value of an artwork whose sole purpose is the expression of feeling
or ideas with an artwork whose purpose is functional.
PRODUCTION: Creating art.
Students create an artwork which uses color to create a mood.
VOCABULARY
Note to volunteers The vocabulary words will be in bold italics throughout the lesson.
They will be defined within the text of the lesson and do not need to be presented
separately
Sculpture: any work of art carried out in three dimensions (height, width and depth).
Glassblowing: glassblowing is the process of forming glass into useful or expressive
shapes while the glass is in a molten, semi-liquid state.
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Chihuly Lesson: PowerPoint K-2
Color mood: color has the ability to create mood, to symbolize ideas and to express
emotion. Bright, warm colors tend to make us feel intensely (e.g., happy or angry). Cool
colors are more sobering and calming.
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red: is equated with the heart and emotion. Red passionate, violent, turbulent,
love.
blue: is associated with the spirit. Blue is the peacemaker of colors; soothing,
cool, dignified and orderly.
yellow: is a symbol of intellect and enlightenment. It radiates warmth, inspiration
and a sunny disposition.
green: is associated with life and hope. It is a restful color.
black: is associated with death, depression, evil.
purple: is associated with royalty.
white: is associated with purity and innocence.
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INTRODUCTION
I want you to look at a group of pictures for a minute to see how the items are like each
other and how they are different from one another. (Give students a minute to just look
and think about your questions.)
First, how are these different from one another? (They are different colors, sizes, shapes
and are used for different things - note some of their uses, some have labels, and some do
not.)
How are these objects like one another? (They are all made of glass, light goes through
them, and each one has a useful purpose.)
Each of these objects is useful to us for different reasons, but each one is used for some
purpose. This one holds a drink, this one is for a candle…etc. Glass is a wonderful
material because it can be made into so many shapes and sizes to do many different
things. How do you think these were made? (These utilitarian objects are made by
machine.)
The artist we are going to learn about today is named Dale Chihuly (che-OO-lee). Say
“Chihuly” with me. Repeat with students. He is probably the most famous artist ever to
come out of the Pacific Northwest. He is an artist that uses glass to create sculptures. A
sculpture is an artwork that has three dimensions. Sculptures have width, height and
depth. The objects we have here are three dimensional. Sculptures are not flat. You can
walk all the way around a sculpture. Say “sculpture” with me. Repeat with students.
Whether plain or beautiful, glass objects have always been made with a specific purpose
in mind until artists like Dale Chihuly came along.
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Chihuly Lesson: PowerPoint K-2
We are going to see some of his glass sculptures that have made Chihuly famous around
the world. But first, let’s see how they make glass objects by hand, one at a time, without
a factory.
HISTORY
MELTED GLASS ON A BLOWPIPE
This first picture shows how they start to make an object out of glass. Unlike other forms
of art like painting, glassblowing takes teamwork. Glassblowing is what we call the
process of making glass objects by hand. Say that with me- “glassblowing”. The person
in charge is called the glassblower. He shapes the glass while his assistants do other jobs.
Here, the assistant dips the end of a hollow pipe called a blowpipe, into melted glass from
a very hot furnace. The glass is kept at about 2000 degrees. It is so hot, it is like melted
cheese.
PHOTOGRAPH OF GAFFER BLOWING ON PIPE
An assistant holds the pipe on one end, while another person blows air into the other end.
This is like blowing a bubble except the bubble is made out of the melted glass. They roll
the pipe to keep the glass from falling off the end of the pipe and give it a round shape.
PHOTOGRAPH OF GAFFER SHAPING A GLASS BUBBLE
The glassblower uses his hand to shape the bubble the way he wants it to look. A thick
stack of wet newspapers protects his hand while he does this. They keep blowing air into
the pipe to make the bubble larger.
PHOTOGRAPH OF COLORED GLASS BEING ADDED
The bubble can be reheated and rolled in different colored glass to add other colors to it.
PHOTOGRAPH OF GLASS FORM ON BLOWPIPE
The glass can be twisted and formed into many shapes while it is still hot. The glass is
returned to the heat of the furnace before it is finally shaped into an art object.
PHOTOGRAPH OF GAFFER SPINNING A BLOWPIPE
Here the glassblower is spinning the object into its final shape. It will then be cut off the
pipe and placed in a special oven called a kiln to cool slowly. If cooled too fast, the glass
could break. Dale Chihuly is the man with the eye patch you see on the right side of the
picture.
FIREWORKS OF GLASS 2006, GLASS, H: 43 FT. CHILDREN’S MUSEUM, INDIANAPOLIS,
INDIANA
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Like Rembrandt, like Elvis, like Ichiro (ee-chee-ro, Seattle Mariners Centerfielder), the
world’s most well known glass artist goes by just one name, Chihuly.
Chihuly’s glass sculptures make you say “wow!” They are brilliant in color and some are
spectacular in size. It isn’t what he started out doing, but it is what he has become famous
for all over the world today.
Chihuly was born and raised in Tacoma, a city in Washington about two hours from
where we live in Portland. When he was in college, he became curious about
glassblowing and one day decided to see if he could do it. He heated a piece of flat,
colored glass until it melted, used a small metal pipe like a straw and blew a little bubble
in it. From then on, he decided he wanted to learn more and began his career as a
glassblower.
There were interesting things happening in the world of glassblowing when Chihuly was
in college. For the first time, artists were beginning to make glass sculptures that didn’t
have a special use. Artists started making glass objects that just expressed their feelings
and ideas.
EIRE PAINTING 1995, LISMORE CASTLE, IRELAND
On a trip to England Chihuly was in a car accident that left him without sight in his left
eye. The loss of his eye caused him to find new ways of working since it was now harder
to see – things looked flatter. He started drawing to show the glass teams what he had in
mind for them to make.
You can see he works in an unusual way. He uses tubes of paint and squirts them on the
paper, making his designs. Sometimes he uses whatever is around to paint with – coffee
or tea or a broom as a paintbrush! This painting is his design idea for something he called
the “Frog Foot Chandelier”.
FROG FOOT CHANDELIER 1995, LISMORE CASTLE, IRELAND, 12 X 6’
Can you see why he named it that? (The ends look like frog toes and a chandelier is a
large hanging light.) Do you think it looks something like the painting we saw in the last
slide? This beautiful blue sculpture was created when Chihuly and his team worked with
some of the best glassblowing teams in Ireland. His idea was to display the pieces
outdoors in all kinds of places. This chandelier was displayed hanging in an old castle.
In this sculpture, you see blues. Have you ever thought about why an artist uses one color
instead of another? The colors that an artist uses can create different feelings or moods.
Colors like red and yellow can cause us to feel strong emotions like anger, happiness or
love. Colors like blue and green can make us feel calm, peaceful or sometimes sad.
1. Raise your hand if you have heard the expression “I feel blue.” What does that
mean? (It means that a person is feeling sad or depressed.)
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CADMIUM YELLOW SEAFORM WITH RED LIP WRAPS 1990, 13 X 33 X 16”
As a boy growing up by the ocean, Chihuly loved walking on the beach looking for bits
of colored rocks or glass in the sand. He made these wonderful glass sculptures he calls
Seaforms to remind him of the beauty and life in the sea. They were not meant to look
like creatures from the sea, only to give the feeling of them. Do the colors make you feel
sad or happy? (Happy, yellow reminds of us sunshine.)
SEAFORM DRAWING 1981, PENCIL, TEA AND ACRYLIC ON PAPER, 19 X 24”
This is a Seaform drawing that Chihuly did that was drawn with a bundle of pencils and
painted with tea.
SEAFORM AND DRAWING COMPARISON
Does it remind you of the glass piece we saw in the last slide?
CRITICISM
CADMIUM RED SOFT CYLINDER WITH PARIS BLUE LIP WRAP 1993, 22 X 19 X 18”
Take a moment to look at this object. Be ready to tell what kind of artwork this is – is it a
painting or a sculpture? (Give students a moment to look at this image, ask them to
identify the type of artwork this is. It is a sculpture.)
Sensory Properties: What do you see?
1. What colors do you see? (Mostly reds, oranges and yellows with some blue and
black.)
Formal Properties: How is it arranged?
1. Colors that are repeated in an artwork help our eye to move around an artwork
because we look for the same colors in other parts of the work. Where do you see
colors that are repeated in this sculpture? (Red, orange, yellow, dark blue, white,
black.)
2. Using your finger, draw an imaginary line in the air that follows the movement of
the blue line around the opening at the top of the cylinder.
Technical Properties: What media, tools and techniques were used?
1. How do you think the glass team put the designs on this sculpture?
(Thread-like pieces of glass are laid out and woven together on a table, they are
melted together with a torch and the blown piece is rolled over it picking it up
onto the surface of the sculpture.)
2. What clues help us tell what medium it is made of? (This is a glass
sculpture, it is shiny, has a reflective surface.)
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Chihuly Lesson: PowerPoint K-2
Expressive Properties: What mood or idea does it express?
1. How do the colors used in this cylinder make you feel? (Answers will vary.
Because of the dominance of warm colors related feelings might be happiness or
excitement.)
AESTHETICS
Note to volunteers These questions are meant to be open-ended; there is no right or
wrong answer.
Do you think a piece of art that is made to be used for something – like a glass lampshade
or bowl is more valuable than another one that is made to express the feelings of an artist
rather than serving as a utilitarian object?
HISTORY (cont.)
COBALT FIORI 2007, PHIPPS CONSERVATORY, PITTSBURGH, PA
Many of the pieces Chihuly and his glassblowing teams are creating today are placed
outdoors in famous gardens for display. He especially enjoys creating forms that remind
him of his mother’s flower garden.
This garden is all greens and blues. How do the colors make you feel? (It has a quiet,
peaceful mood.)
DRAWING INSTALLATION 2007, MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART
For the last twenty five years, Dale Chihuly has used bright color in his artworks no
matter if they are glass sculptures or paintings. Today, we will do a painting inspired by
Chihuly that uses all kinds of new techniques and unusual materials.
PRODUCTION
COLOR CRAZINESS
Chihuly is known mostly for his glass artwork, but also loves to draw and paint. He likes
to create drawings and paintings that are fluid and that don’t follow any rules.
Criteria:
1. A mixed media painting was created.
2. The painting exhibited color to create a feeling or mood. Reds, yellows and
oranges for excitement or happiness. Greens, blues and purples for a quiet, restful
feeling.
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Chihuly Lesson: PowerPoint K-2
Materials:
Colored pencils or crayons
Rubber bands
Tempera paint - 4-6 colors – bright, vibrant colors
Astrobright cardstock – 8-1/2 x 11 (available at Office Depot or Paper Zone)
Sponges
Marbles – 2 per student
Plastic spoons – 1 per student
Paint brushes
Kitchen brushes – to add different textures
Shower scrubbies – cut netting apart, fold over and rubber banded
Cardboard box lids (Xerox paper box lids work well)
Muffin tin to act as paint tray
Instructions:
1. Have students choose a piece of paper to work on that helps to create a specific
mood or feeling. They should choose yellow, red or orange for a painting with an
exciting, happy feeling. A green, purple or blue paper will create a quiet, peaceful
feeling.
2. Use about six colored pencils or crayons in one hand at once and draw 1-3 circles
on the astrobright paper. If the crayons or pencils are difficult to hold, place a
rubber band at the top and bottom of the bundle.
3. Put the tempera paint into the muffin tins, just covering the bottom of the tin.
Tins hold six different colors.
4. Add paint to the inside of the circles and around them using sponges, brushes or
anything to create a variety of textures and spatters.
5. Using a plastic spoon, students will roll two marbles into desired paint color and
place them into the box lid along with the painting. Roll the marbles over the
work, back and forth or in a swirling motion. There is no need to wash marbles
between students as almost all of the paint comes off of them.
6. Use a paint brush and paint to make a suggestion of a basket or cylinder shape
over the painting. Suggestion: a quick oval for the opening and a curving “U”
shape or line to suggest the body of the basket or cylinder.
7. Have students examine their painting and see if there is a color that is dominant
and gives the painting a mood or feeling that is desired.
Jill Bogle, 2007/Melody Ball, 2011
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Chihuly Lesson: PowerPoint K-2