Jim Dine was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He fondly recalls childhood trips to the Cincinnati Art Museum. While he was attending Walnut Hills High School he attended evening classes at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. After initially enrolling at the University of Cincinnati, Dine finished his BFA at Ohio University in 1957. He moved to New York City in 1959 and became involved with Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, and Roy Lichtenstein whose work moved away from abstract expressionism toward pop art. His series of heart paintings is the basis of this fourth grade art project.

Students drew on paper with crayons, then painted over it with watercolors. This is called a Crayon Resist, because the crayon “pops” through the paint. We study Jim Dine because the Ohio Visual Arts Standard for fourth grade requires study of Ohio artists.

Can you tell which of these three images is the Jim Dine heart?