Kindergarten: Masks

Kindergarten students are now beginning their first extensive unit of the school year. This unit deals with various forms of costuming and celebrations. As we think about art which is worn on the body, masks usually come readily to mind. Discussion begins with asking students about the many uses of masks and listing them on board: disguise, theatrics, festivities, ceremony, protection, etc.

Students are then shown two examples of African masks and are asked for what purpose they think these masks may have been used for. They are also asked to find various shapes, either geometric or free form, within the design and structure of the masks. Kindergarteners are asked about facial expressions and what they are. After making several different facial expressions of their own, students are shown two more exmaples of African masks and asked to identify their expressions.

This lesson takes several weeks to complete, as even paper masks are very time-consuming to construct. Each week consists of new teacher demonstrations and students are shown two teacher examples which convey strong facial expressions. Students are then instructed to think about what kind of shapes can be used to help convey the expression they will choose to depict on their mask, i.e. how will sharp triangular eyes differ in expression from large, circular eyes? What kind of shapes can be used for eyebrows in a shocked expression, or an angry face? Once the facial expression was completed, students were instructed on embellishing the mask with hair.

Observational Drawing: Everyday Utensils, Up Close

Students in the second grade had a chance to examine everyday objects up close and notice small features about them they might not otherwise notice. A variety of hardware tools, cooking utensils, office supplies and art-making equipment was placed at each table, allowing students to explore them via touch and sight. Students were instructed to draw from these available objects and encouraged to try shading and texture techniques. Some chose to focus on one particular object, while others drew from several.

November Masterpiece of the Month: Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanual Leutze

Who made this artwork?

A German artist named, Emanuel Leutze, created this painting in 1851.

Where is the REAL one?

This painting can be viewed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, NY.

Why is this artwork important?

This painting is almost life-size! If you saw it in person, you would feel as though you were close to the boats in the painting. Leutze was very interested in the American Revolution and carefully researched his information for this work. Here, General George Washington crosses the Delaware River to surprise the British troops in New Jersey who thought the victory of the war would be their's. Leutze wants to show us how brave Washington was to take the risk of crossing the icy river and tries to make it look as glorious as possible. This is a ROMANTIC picture because it is more beautiful and dramatic than real life.

The thirteen men in the boat represent the thirteen colonies and each man is wearing clothes which represent his colonial region. Leutze uses the color red only in Washington's boat, as well as a light glow around Washington and the American flag to draw attention to certain parts of the picture.

November Master of the Month: Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), more commonly known as Andy Warhol was one of America’s most famous artists. He was a painter, printmaker and filmmaker, and was a leading artist in a style known as Pop Art. Like other artists working in the Pop Art style, Warhol was interested in symbols and objects we recognize from popular culture, such as advertising and comic books, and used his art to bring attention to our attitudes towards these pop subjects.
After a successful career as an illustrator, Warhol became famous for his work as a fine artist, as well as being a public figure. He enjoyed being around many kinds of people, including celebrities, intellectuals, aristocrats and street people. He coined the widely used expression "15 minutes of fame”.
During the 1960s, Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. He also used imagery from newspaper headlines and photographs.
Warhol’s studio became as famous as he was, known as The Factory, where a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and celebrities gathered and worked. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method, in which colored inks are printed onto fabric using a soft screen. During his lifetime, Warhol’s work was popular with some people and upsetting to others who were confused or insulted by his ideas and choices.

Grade Three: Using Color to Depict Emotion

After spending several weeks exploring how color can be used and depicted, students in the third grade began this lesson by viewing five examples of painting done in the abstract expressionist style. Students were instructed to consider how color can be used to represent non-concrete concepts such as emotional feelings. Each of the five paintings were shown in slide form and shown to students for one minute, during which time students wrote down the emotions they felt were best represented in each painting, or any emotions the colors in each painting evoked within them. Answers were then discussed and explained while viewing the works again.

Students were then shown a demo for using watercolor paint in different techniques so as to effectively convey different color qualities, such as bleeding colors together or painting with minimal water to achieve crisp brushstokes. These techniques would be necessary to consider when students had to make their own color decisions when depicting a specific emotion in their own painting. Each individual student was assigned an emotion to depict, from four possibilities: joy, fear, anger and sadness. Students were encouraged to make thoughtful decisions, and to also consider shape, line and paint quality, in addition to making color choices, to best represent their assigned emotion.

JOY


ANGER


SADNESS


FEAR

Grade Four: Seeing Color in the Landscape

Fourth grades looked at two examples of landscape paintings by French Impressionist painter, Claude Monet (Path In the Wheat Field at Pourville and Haystacks at Giverny). Both paintings depict the artist’s understanding of using the full spectrum of the color wheel. Students were guided to notice the use of analogous colors, which are the colors next to one another on the color wheel, as well as complimentary colors, which stand directly across from each other on the color wheel. When colors are planned in this way, they create a more noticeable impact upon the viewer’s eyes when looking at the painting.

Students were then given photographs of various colorful landscapes to use as reference for their own paintings. Students were instructed to mix all the colors they would use from the primary colors they were given.

Grade One: Printing with a Stencil

First graders continued there exploration of shapes and patterns by examining the minimalist painting, The Gift by Kenneth Noland. Students were led through a discussion and series of questions to help them decipher and understand how Noland created this carefully planned painting in order to repeat the shapes of the circles.

Once the process of stencil-making was explained, students were instructed in making their own stencils and how to print them using tempera paint in a variety of combinations to make repetitive patterns and designs.

Grade Two: Tin Foil Relief Sculpture

Students in second grade have begun the year learning about positive and negative shapes, which is a considerably different way of viewing and thinking about shapes from the initial kindergarten/first grade introduction to basic shape types. Understanding positive and negative shapes is of key importance when viewing a work of art. For this lesson, students looked and several examples of relief sculpture and were asked how a sculpture such as this is different from a sculpture such as the Statue of Liberty. Students are usually pretty quick to point out that the Statue of Liberty is a free-standing sculpture, seen from all sides, whereas a relief sculpture, such as seen in many ancient artworks, can only be viewed from one side as it is carved halfway onto a flat surface. In essence, the positive shapes are raised up from the flat, negative background.

To help students understand this concept, students were instructed to create their own cardboard relief using pre-cut and sorted pieces of mat board and yarn and gluing them onto a cardboard background.

Careful attention was paid to layer the pieces of varying sizes and shapes, so as to create a raised design. Once complete, the reliefs were covered in tin foil to create a visually unified effect.

Grade One: Using Shape to Create Patterns

First graders were guided through a discussion of how shapes can form patterns, what constitutes a pattern, how patterns can be found in the natural and man-made world. Students noticed many patterns emerge in photographs of such subjects, whether they were comprised of shapes, colors, lines, size, etc.

Students were then given stamps in a variety of shapes and instructed to create patterns of their own design.

Kindergarten: How Artists Use Shapes

This project marks the first of activities which will span longer than one week to complete, throughout the year. It is important for students at this age to strengthen their fine motor skills. Learning to control and manipulate scissors and drawing utensils is challenging and takes time and practice. What better time in the year to introduce kindergarteners to the element of shape?
Week One: Students were first shown flash cards of some easy (and some not-so-easy) to recognize geometric shapes. Their attention was then brought to Mondrian’s painting, Tableau 1, and asked if he used any of those shapes in his painting. Students were then given an envelope to store up to five geometric shapes they had chosen from a selection pre-cut by the art teacher. Once their shapes were selected, they were allowed to embellish the shapes with markers to make their selections even more special. They was also allowed to decorate their envelopes and then store their shapes for safe-keeping until the following week, when they would use these shapes in a creation of their own.

Week Two: Students reviewed the geometric shape flash cards. This week, however, they are delighted to find some new surprises: organic, or free form, shapes amid the geometric ones. Students were introduced to both groups of shapes and how they differ from each other. They were then instructed to take their previewly chosen geometric shapes from last week and arrange them into a creative composition. What can be made from your shapes? How can they be turned into something other than a square or triangle?
Once shapes are glued into place, students were instructed to cut and add an organic shape to their composition. Markers were used to help further clarify their idea.

The Art Room Needs Your Shoeboxes and Recycleables!

The new school year is bringing some new and exciting changes to Art this year. Mrs. Esile-Sylva and I are already busy planning this year's art show and concert. Without giving too much of the surprise away too soon, we are planning an environmental "green" theme and the art room is in need of lots of shoeboxes. We also need recycleable materials, small
enough to fit in a shoebox.

Materials such as:

• paper towel rolls
• small paper boxes and packaging
• small plastic bottles, jars and containers
• jar lids
• bottle caps
• plastic cups and lids
• egg cartons (plastic and paper)
• Any "junk" that is small and easy for small
hands to work with.

PLEASE no glass or tin cans! Marked boxes will be left in the lobby to collect the shoeboxes and
recycleables, or you can leave them in the art room. Many thanks!

Grade One: Seeing Shapes in the Human Portrait

For the past few weeks, first graders have been studying shape and how it differs from the natural to the man-made world. Most students can identify and cut basic shapes, but using them in a meaningful way and using them to represent various subjects is something which takes some focus and practice.

Students discussed the shapes found in the human face and how they vary from person to person. They were then instructed to cut out shapes to depict the human face in a collage portrait. Students were allowed to construct a self-portrait, a portrait of someone they know, or a random portrait of no particular likeness.

Grade Three: Seeing Detail and Color in the Landscape

Third graders examined a landscape painting by French Impressionist, Camille Pissarro, entitled, Place du Theatre-Francais, Spring. Students were led in discussion to see beyond the obvious subject matter: a landscape, and to look closely at the details, shadows, color, light and how the paint was handled by the artist. The Impressionists were a group of artists in the 19th century who were interested in depicting natural light and the color as it appeared, even in dark areas, such as shadows, mixing colors to best convey those areas, accordingly.

Students were then given photographs of various landscapes to use as reference for their oil pastel drawings. They were instructed in methods of blending and mixing colors, and for depicting the subtle qualities of a landscape, such as detail, color and shading.