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Grade 1 – Oil Pastel Doves
In a discussion, the first graders decided that they would like to express a prayer for peace. Doves, as a symbol for peace, served as the subject matter for this project. To prepare for this project, the first graders looked at a variety of artwork that used doves as symbols. The students were encouraged to exploit the properties of their favorite drawing medium, oil pastels, in blending colors to create new ones.
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Grade 1 -- Block Printing
Continuing work with a tree motif, first graders completed a multi-print edition of tree drawings to commemorate Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish holiday of trees. With this type of printing, multiple copies of one image can be made, each one with a different combination of colors. To prepare for this project, the class looked at a wide range of wood and lino block prints, noting the special characteristics of this medium. Concepts emphasized were line variety and texture. The fact that are reversed in the printing process provides an extra challenge. Next, the students engaged in a multi-step printing process, first transferring the drawing to a printing block. Foam blocks were used for safety reasons, rather than linoleum or wood, since they can be “carved” without sharp knives or gouges. The first graders completed a print proof, using printing ink rolled with a brayer onto their plate. After seeing the proof, some had to modify their plates. Using brayers and block printing ink, each student completed several prints using a variety of color combinations. In making their choices of papers and inks, the students were able to demonstrate their understanding of color contrast.
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Grade 1 -- Insect Drawing
The first graders looked at books and magazine pictures showing the incredible variety of insect shapes and colors. Using metallic pencils on black paper, each student drew an insect of his or her choice. By drawing large, students had room to give special attention to detail and pattern. So as to make a bold statement and focus the viewer on the insect, no background was included in the drawing.
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Grade 2 – Paper Shape collages
Second graders learned about abstraction, the use of symbols in art, and were introduced to non-representational art. They reviewed some of the elements and principles of composition, including line, shape, rhythm, balance, and unity. Inspired by the works of French artist Henri Matisse, the second graders composed cut paper collages, working with a variety of colors, shapes, and lines, each modified and repeated. As they planned the layout of their composition, they strove to create a center of interest, and to cause the viewer’s eye to travel over the entire picture plane. Their color choices and some very sophisticated shapes contributed to very strong graphic statements.
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Grade 2 – Sky watercolor painting
The second graders viewed the paintings of English artist J.W. Turner (1775-1851) as part of their study of the wondrous variety of ways to depict the sky and atmospheric conditions. This exploration included observations of the sky over a two week period. Emphasis was placed on discovering the variety of colors, light qualities, and cloud forms in the sky that they could choose to depict in their artwork. Turner was a master of capturing light and atmosphere in luminous, mystic visions of nature. His amazing and innovative painting approach preceded the Impressionist movement by nearly a century. The students learned watercolor wash techniques, wet on wet techniques, and experimented with mixing colors both in a palette and directly on the paper, before approaching their sky painting. To give their sky paintings scale and a point of reference, they added a horizon, in silhouette, using either cut paper, or marker. This allowed their incredible skies to have center stage.
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Grade 2 – Weaving
The second graders created yarn weavings as part of an introduction to textile art. They learned a technique that they can use at home using a simple notched cardboard loom. They learned to warp their own looms, weave in a basic balanced stitch, and change colors. Although we discussed how to choose yarn colors based on analogous color families, students were completely free to make their own color decisions. The idea they held in mind was to weave a fantastically colored cloth as might have been used to fashion Joseph’s Coat of Many Colors. Although the weaving process started out as quite challenging for many of the kids, they all became quite adept weavers. With these basic weaving skills, they will be able to build more complex stitches and designs as time goes on.
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Grade 3 - Geese in Flight
Beautifully illustrated children’s books often serve as inspiration for our work in art. The third graders looked at a book that deals with the change of seasons from autumn to winter: Goodbye Geese, by Nancy White Carlstrom. Not only was this richly illustrated with nature scenes, but it quite poetically used personification and extended metaphor to convey the theme. Caldecott Medal winner Ed Young’s vivid, minimalist pastel drawings were the inspiration for the third graders’ next project. Students used oil pastels, a very favorite medium, to create the familiar and quintessential image of the coming of winter: Canada geese flying across the autumn sky. Students exploited the characteristics of the pastel medium to blend colors and vary color intensity. They created additional color dimension by allowing the dark background paper to show, and worked hard to emphasize contrast between the figure of the flying bird and the sky in the background. Drawings were thoughtfully composed to use the entire picture plane, and to zero in on essential detail, creating a focal point or center of interest.
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Grade 3 -- Patterns on Textile
As inspiration for a textile art project, to deepen our exploration of pattern in art, and to broaden the children’s experience of art from other cultures, we looked at the artwork of the Senufo people who are indigenous to the north central area of the Ivory Coast in Africa. The Senufo cloth paintings are masterpieces of pattern. These people’s works were chosen to study because, not only are they masters of pattern, they also, like the Jews, they have a rich and often difficult history in which struggle and displacement were common. It was interesting to hear the children’s ideas about how the circumstances of living without a homeland may affect the art produced by the people! In the striking artworks done by the third graders, they explored the concepts of line variety and pattern in design, and the relationship between figure and ground. The design motifs were animals, viewed from above or from the side. Each child started with a sketch, which they then transferred to cloth. The kids were gutsy in their use of permanent marker in applying the geometric patterns to their animals. The works were finished with a light wash of acrylic paint to simulate the natural dyes the Senufo make from pulverized corn, leaves, and bark.
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Grade 3 – Cut and Torn Paper Landscape Silhouettes
The third grade artists were inspired by photographs of the American Southwest desert. The students became acquainted with basic terms and elements of landscape art, such as foreground, middle ground, background, and horizon line. They experimented with the concepts of overlapping, edge quality (crisp vs. soft), and the relationship and effect of distance on size, as well as color and detail (atmospheric perspective). Working with a limited palette of colors, the third graders created a cool serene mood and an impression of dawn or dusk. The students learned about back-lighting, which causes objects in the front to appear in darkness, with no detail (in silhouette). The combination of crisp, scissors-cut edges and soft torn edges adds texture and visual interest to the landscape. By tearing and cutting colored paper, rather than drawing or painting, the children were able to quickly place down the segments of space and express their ideas of three dimensional space on a two dimensional surface.
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Grade 4 – Animal Studies (Value Studies)
A portrait captures the subject’s individuality and unique characteristics. The fourth grade students were certainly successful in conveying the personalities, as well as the appearance, of the animals in these studies. The class explored one of the most important elements of design: value. This is the use of light and dark: black, white, and a full range of shades of gray. Light and shadow allow the viewer to perceive three dimensional objects depicted on a two dimensional surface. Value is also used to give emphasis to a focal point, and emotional qualities to a work of art. Value is important in works in color, as well. Learning to control and exploit the use of value in drawing and painting is an essential skill that will enhance their work in all media. Observing and depicting details, highlights and shadows were emphasized in these drawings. The fourth graders used both black and white pencils on a gray tone paper to achieve the full scale of values – a very challenging technique. They learned to vary the pressure of the pencils and overlay the two tones to achieve the range of values needed in their works. All the students strove to depict a variety of textures in their work.
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Grade 4 -- Apple Still Life
The fourth graders had their first experience in drawing from a still life: an arrangement of apples set in front of them. There were apples of every size, shape, and color imaginable! Our goal was to hone observational skills, and have students learn to draw what they actually see, rather than their mental idea or abstraction of an object. Before drawing, the students observed the apples closely, noting the wide variety of colors, forms, textures, and even smells of each individual fruit. They closely studied the subtle nuances in hue and tone. They then rendered these still life drawings with colored pencils, building on the skills of color blending that they had used in third grade in completing self-portraits. They strove to depict three-dimensional space by using overlapping, shading, and shadow. The kids were surprised to discover just how much our brains trick us in interpreting what we see. The observational skills they are developing will help them transcend drawing what they know and begin drawing what they see – a major step in representing three dimensions on a flat surface.
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Grade 4 – Noah and the Great Flood Oil Pastels
The students enthusiastically attacked a full color work. Preliminary work they completed with line and tone was reflected in the sensitive depictions of the story of Noah. These portions evoke very strong visual and proved truly inspirational as a subject matter for the kids’ drawings. The class looked at several illustrated books depicting various aspects of the story, including an almost wordless book by Peter Spier, and the class discussed how pictures can be used to tell a story. Oil pastels, still a favorite medium, were used. Again, colored rather than white paper was used in order to help the students plan and exploit the use value in their artwork. The students concentrated on layering colors for a rich effect, and applying the concepts of light and dark gleaned from the value
studies they had done earlier.
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Grade 5 – Contour Drawing, Shoes
Students applied their mastery of line to a contour drawing of their own shoes. It was gratifying to see that the experience this class had last year in drawing still life subjects was quite evident in these sketches. They are becoming more comfortable with the idea that every line they make on their papers does not have to be perfect. Rather, the quickly sketched lines they draw serve as guide lines that tell them what to do next to refine their work. Drawing from a real three dimensional object, and translating that onto a two dimensional surface is a most challenging skill. One goal of this lesson was to further hone the children’s observational skills, and have them draw what they actually see, rather than draw a vague idea or abstraction of an object. They concentrated on accurately depicting the shoes’ proportions as well as the details of pattern and texture of the shoes.
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Grade 5 – Portraits of American Jews
Although this project was started with some trepidation by most of the students, it ended with their feeling proud and confident about their work. They each did a pencil portrait rendering of the historical person that they had researched in their general studies class. Copying the face required acute observational skills. The fifth graders learned how to enlarge or reduce the size of an image when copying it, making grids of various proportions to lay over the image to be duplicated (great reinforcement of math skills!) The smooth transitions of a full range of gray tones gives these works their three dimensional effect. The students prepared for this endeavor with some simpler technical exercises, such as creating a full-range value scale, and transforming a flat circle into a sphere by defining a light source and carefully rendering it with a full range of tone. They were able to synthesize the shading skills they learned last year when they drew animal portraits on gray paper, using black and white pencils. The outstanding drawings are the result of a curriculum that systematically builds skills and conceptual knowledge over time, and of the students’ perseverance! They will certainly be able to apply these skills in future creative works.
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Grade 5 – Hamsas
The fifth graders worked with a material new to them. Using fine gauge copper sheets, they formed hamsas in bas relief. The kids were interested to learn that the hamsa is an Arab as well as a Jewish amulet. They were introduced to the process of repousse, in which metal sheet is worked and stretched with tools from both sides, to create both depth and texture. Before planning their own design, the class viewed various examples of hamsas, noting the symbols commonly associated with them. Students were encouraged to plan a design that would incorporate symbols with personal meaning to them. In addition, the designs were to have detail and surface texture. The finished products are beautiful and highly individual works.
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