The Art Studio at PS 250: May 2013

Friday, May 24, 2013

Evening of the Arts 2013

Evening of the Arts is an annual culminating celebration of all PS 250's students' achievements made in the arts from throughout the school year. Keyboard, Recorder and Drama clubs perform, as well as dance, music and chorus performances. In addition, I hang (with the help of wonderful parent and staff volunteers) a student art exhibition in the gym, effectively turning our gym into an art gallery for 2 days. A work of art from every student I see is hung (from grades k-5); pre-k, plastic canvas, crochet club and the magnet team also displayed work they have made with students throughout the year. Last night, at Evening of the Arts, I also led (with the amazing help of Mr. Cooper) a family art making workshop at the back of the gallery where parents, visitors and students made collages together. I also trained students docents from class 3-303 to lead tours from 5-5:45 through the gallery. The night was an incredible success and all of the PS 250 artists should feel very proud of their hard work and accomplishments!

A recap of the projects I made with students, as well as images from the exhibition and the night are below:

Kindergarten

Assemblage Self-Portraits:

Kindergarteners thought about a favorite activity & how they look doing the activity. Then, they glued together pre-cut cardboard shapes to create themselves doing this activity. Finally, they collaged colored and textured paper on top to create clothes, a face, hair, etc., in order to give their cardboard portrait personality.

1^st Grade

Neighborhood Paintings

1st graders looked at Jacob Lawrence’s paintings of Harlem, then they took a virtual tour of their neighborhood on Google Earth (using the SMART board). After looking at various places in their neighborhood during the virtual tour, students thought about a favorite part of their neighborhood. They used tempera paint and various sizes of brushes to then paint this place.

2^nd Grade

Dream Home Print Murals

Class 2-212 learned about the career of architecture and looked at buildings created by famous Spanish artist Antoní Gaudi. They imagined their own dream house they wished they could live in and learned how to make a flat version of this house by cutting shapes out of heavy construction paper and gluing them together. The result was a flat printing plate, which students rolled ink onto and printed on large pieces of paper (several students printed on the same piece to create a mural). Students then worked together to “hand color” their prints with crayons.

Self-Portrait Outer Space Collages

2^ndgraders read the book “Regards to the Man in the Moon” by Ezra Jack Keats and thought about what kind of outer space adventure they would go on if they could. They thought about position their bodies might be in on this adventure and then created a collage of themselves in this position using construction paper and glue. They added pieces of colored construction paper on top for “clothes” and “faces”. Finally, they made the background, or location, of this adventure using various types of paper (patterned, painted, etc.) and added their “person” on top.

3^rd Grade

Collograph Self-Portrait Prints

3^rd graders looked at self-portrait prints by famous artists and made collograph printing plates of their own portrait by cutting and gluing cardstock shapes together. They printed these portraits multiple times, in different ways and with different colors, to create multiple “editions” of their print.

4^th Grade

Still Life Paintings

4^th graders studied still life paintings (or paintings of objects that are non-living, like flowers and fruit) by Impressionist artists. They then painted their own still lifes from observation by looking at various objects that were set up on their tables for them each week. They spent 6 weeks painting these still lifes, concentrating on mixing lots of colors and painting details they noticed

5^th Grade
Spirit Animal Masks

5^th graders learned about masks created by African Tribes to represent animal spirits. They thought about what animal represents their own personality or spirit and created masks of this animal using newspaper and paper maché. Once the mask was hard, the back and interior was removed and 5^th graders added colored paper and paint to the outside shell in order to finish their masks.

Morning Art Club

Accordion Books

Students in the 37.5 minute program created books this past fall/winter. Students wrote their own original stories that took place in NYC; some students wrote fiction stories and others wrote non-fiction. All of the illustrations were also done by them and were created in collage.

Papier Maché Circus

Students spent the winter/spring creating their own papier maché circus people. They found inspiration in Alexander Calder's Circus (on display at the Whitney), then imagined their own circus acts. They used wire, assemblage and papier maché to create their very imaginative sculptures. (Ms. Westerberg even made a paper maché self-portrait to be the ring leader!)

From left to right:
Ballerinas by Betzy and Karen, "Contortionist" by Jennessy, "Clown" by Nicholas and "Acrobat" by Salma

From left to right:
"Ring Leader" by Ms. Westerberg, "Lion" by Jalen, "Strong Man" by Jaden and "Trapeze Artist" by Brandon

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Kindergarten "Favorite Activity" Portraits

Kindergarteners just finished a unit in which they created a portrait of themselves doing a favorite activity. They created the portraits using assemblage and collage materials.
Students began by discussing the main parts of our bodies. We then made a list on the Smart Board of their favorite activities (e.g., swimming, dancing, running, jumping ,etc.) and students acted out them out to consider how their bodies looked when they did the activity. Next, students chose pieces of pre-cut cardboard shapes and assembled the shapes together to re-present the way their body looks when doing their favorite activity.

Kindergarteners assembling shapes to create a self-portrait

After students had created the base of their "person", they collaged colored and construction paper on top of the cardboard parts to create clothes and a face for their portrait.

K-B02 adding faces

K-B02 working

K-B01 working on "clothes" and "faces"

Irene from K-B07 working

The following week, I introduced students to the element of textures (e.g., smooth, hairy, bumpy, etc.) and had a discussion with students about all of the places on our bodies that have texture. I set up a texture "buffet" at the front of the classroom and let students choose 3 pieces of textured material to add to their person.

Students selecting items from the texture buffet

Students spent the final week adding details to their self-portrait. The Kindergarten students worked very hard on this project and the results are truly amazing! Enjoy!!