Soup's On!

This month, kindergarten artists continued their exploration the Pop Art movement by learning about American artist, Andy Warhol.  Andy Warhol explored the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement that flourished in the 1960s.  

Through images and the storybook, "Uncle Andy's" by James Warhola, we learned all about how Warhol was a eccentric character-- he had many different wigs, frequently wore sunglasses, had many strange collections, and had close to 25 cats-- all named Sam! We learned that Warhol was very ill as a child and was bedridden for long periods of time, during which his mom would make him soup each day. Ultimately, Warhol became most famous for his series of prints depicting cans of  Campbell’s soup.  Here's one of ours, using Warhol's crazy colors.

Kindergarteners have also been exploring grocery stores in their classroom as part of their most recent project-based learning study. In art, we talked a little bit about product design and how designers create packaging to try to appeal to the shopper.  Artists looked at different products and brands and noticed elements that needed to be included, such as what the product is, product images, brand name, price, ingredients, colors, etc.  They also noticed that brands sometimes use characters, like Toucan Sam or Chef Boyardee to help make their product more appealing! After some investigation, our “little Warhols” designed their own soup cans.  

 You will find our cans on the "shelves" during the upcoming grocery store celebration! Happy shopping!

Free to Be

This week, we had a high school theater group come visit our elementary school to do a special performance of "Free to Be...You and Me."  This project, originally an illustrated book and album released in 1972, featured stories and songs to encourage gender neutrality, and saluted values such as individuality, confidence, tolerance and comfort with one's own identity.

Even though our students are still mostly under the age of 7, it was so wonderful to see arts education used as a platform to instill these messages at such an early age.  Whether it be drama, music, dance or visual arts, it is so important that schools give every age group the opportunity to explore and express themselves creatively. Teaching in a time where so much of educational culture is dictated by testing and politics, I feel extremely lucky to be part of a school that celebrates art education at such a high level.  I not only see how it's given this group of high schoolers an artistic outlet where they are "free to be" in a safe and supported way, but I think it is really touching to see those students using their art as a way to pass these messages of tolerance and love to the next generation.

Inventors of Color, Mixers of Magic

After so much paint exploration this year, our kindergarten artists are EXPERTS at color mixing.  As a fun challenge, I gave our young color connoisseurs grids of 36 squares and trays with the primary colors, plus black and white.  Their mission: mix colors for all 36 squares without repeating any colors.  At first my young friends told me this would be impossible, but once they got started they discovered the infinite combinations that they could make! 

As we worked, we started naming the colors.  Our artists realized, for example that there were so many different tints and shades of yellow. Sometimes, simply calling a color yellow (or light yellow or dark yellow, for that matter) didn't capture the essence of the color.  We started to think of ways we could name and describe our colors to give people a clear idea of exactly what hue we were referring to.  As we mixed, here are a few we came up with:

Cherry blossom pink

Forest green

Thunder black

Elephant grey

Watermelon green

Blood red

Spiderweb white

Sun yellow

Guitar brown

Convertible pink

Popcorn yellow

Mint green

Tango pink

Lava red

Baby grey

Salmon orange

Grape juice purple

Whale blue

Egg yolk yellow

Milky white

Sky blue

Medicine pink

Can you think of more?

Honoring Mom

Last Thursday, the art room had a visit from a fabulous guest artist.  Just in time for Mother's Day, one of our student's parents joined us to share her knowledge of floral design. Our first grade designers learned about this exciting art career and got some hands on experience designing their own arrangements. Our artists learned about base, accent and focal flowers and got some quick tips on creating dynamic compositions. 

They also learned the meanings of different types of flowers and explored different smells and textures within their arrangements.  

After their designs were completed, our artists drew their creations from observation, paying special attention to the different shapes and lines that they noticed.  They then traced their pencil drawing in Sharpie.

Finally, we used colored pencils (for more detailed areas) and watercolored (for big washes of color) to add color and depth to our drawings.  Artists then wrote a special message of appreciation to mom on the back and took their "bouquets" home to celebrate Mother's Day!

 Here are a few of our arrangements:

Exploring Our Urban Community

This month, first graders are doing a project-based learning exploration of our neighborhood and what it means to live in an urban community.  They have been taking neighborhood walks, visiting local businesses, noticing street signs and talking to people in our community. Pairing with this, first graders have been learning about artist and activist, Romare Bearden, whose art focused on unity and cooperation in Harlem in the mid-20th century.  We observed his collage, "The Block" and talked about what kinds of things we saw happening in their community at that time.  Afterwards, we compared and contrasted our own community and surrounding neighborhoods.  Inspired by his work and their local investigations, our artists made some drawings of things they noticed on their own blocks. 

Next, we took our drawings and recreated them on pieces of Styrofoam, pressing into the material with a pen.  These drawings became our printing plate. We then used our brayers and black ink to print our images on blue and pink paper.  Scholars worked hard to create many prints of their block, assessing each time whether the print was successful and then adjusting their technique accordingly.  After we finished, artists looked through their 6-8 prints and picked their best pink print and their best blue print. After we finished, artists wrote and illustrated step-by-step plans for how to create a print.

Finally, we talked about warm and cool colors.  After doing some sorting with colorful squares, we used watercolors to create warm and cool backgrounds for our blocks, using different brush techniques and experimenting with different amounts of water.  

Artists cut out their best prints and attached them to their warm and cool background, using glue, and then added final details with oil pastels.  Here are a few of our warm and cool colored urban scenes!

Keith Haring Visits the Art Studio...

Something SUPER EXCITING happened today in the art studio!

Our scholars have been learning about the art of 1980s pop artist, Keith Haring.  We've been talking about how Haring came to New York City and about his fundamental belief that art should belong to the people-- not locked up inside museums and owned only be the upper class.  As a response, Haring started making his artwork in the subways and on station walls, inspired by the culture, music, and street art and hip hop scene around him.  Our artists were immediately drawn to his work, excited by his dynamic action lines, bold colors, and simplified forms. We practiced some poses with our bodies (freeze dance to 80s hip hop is AWESOME!) and then drew some Keith Haring figures of our own. 

Upon hearing about our exploration of Haring's work, one student's family let us know that they actually have a Keith Haring test print in their possession.  Our young friend (and his VERY generous parents!) brought the piece to school so our artists could take close-up look at Keith himself!

Here is some of the backstory as to how the piece was acquired by our student's dad:

"I was fan of KH’s work, which was all over the subway stations when I got to NYC, 1982.  At that time, he was still making drawings on the heavy black backing paper on unused ad spaces in the stations.  It was the height of the graffiti era, and tags and full-car works were also everywhere.  KH’s work was fundamentally different, but it was still street art, and he really moved in the graffiti and early hip hop scenes, and in a sort of gay subculture within the larger subculture.  Although he was a white kid from Pennsylvania who went to art school, he was, I thought, genuinely immersed in the street scene, even as he became an important part of the emerging East Village art scene.

I do not remember how the introduction was made, although I would see him and his friends at clubs now and then.  But I wanted to interview him, and did sometime in 1983, in a couple of visits to a loft studio on Mercer just between Houston and Bleeker.  He was there with his friend Angel, a graffiti artist.  Because I was interested in relationships among subcultures, and between subcultures and dominant culture, as I thought about those things at the time, I asked a lot of questions about how he came to street culture, from street culture to East Village galleries, and then, just about that time, to being represented by Shafrazi gallery in Soho. I remember going to a KH opening at Shafrazi that was a wild and wonderful event, much more like a night at a hip hop club, a Friday night at The Roxy, with DJs and dancing, than a staid art opening.  The energy of hip hop, of dancing and DJs, is vivid in almost all of KH’s work, including this piece.

This is a test print (see the “t” in a circle to indicate that), and was a casual gift. He made no big deal about it, and it is not as though I was an important writer or as though I knew him well, though we met a few times. He was just generous.

I wish the kids could hold it to feel the quality and grain of the paper, the way the paper takes the pigment, see and feel the tack holes that show how a working artist creates not just finished works, but test prints and works-in-progress that are tacked up and tossed around – even if we now frame it with archival materials.  It would be nice to let everyone get as close as they want, touch the frame, and have a chance to examine the print as closely as they can despite the frame. I encourage that. We can always clean the little fingerprints and nose prints later." 

It was definitely a day to remember for all of us!!

Process over Product

As an art teacher, I've always found air dry clay to be... challenging.  Because we don't have access to a kiln, in our art studio we always use this type of clay that dries with exposure to air alone.  Air dry clay has a soft and pliable texture when it's wet, it is easy to work with, and makes beautiful sculptures.

That is, until it dries.

It is the end of the school year and we have recently been cleaning out showcases and returning a lot of artwork, including the dinosaurs we featured on this blog, back in January.  Unfortunately, a lot of our dinosaurs have gone home and come back as piles of dino bones and rubble.  As much as I keep gluing them back together, they seem to keep falling apart.  (Teacher suggestions are welcomed!)

I talked to our artists a little about process versus product.  We discussed how sometimes with certain materials, the fun and the learning happens in the process of making your art, and it isn't necessarily meant to last a lifetime.

One kiddo was not so convinced.  As first graders are in the midst of their letter-writing unit, this student opted to be an active consumer and let his dissatisfaction be heard!  The hilarious results are above! 

Ice Cream Social

Although it is still spring, our first graders have declared ice cream season officially ON!  After looking at sweets-obsessed artists like Wayne Theibaud (above) and Claes Oldenburg (below), our scholars decided to make some tasty treats of their own.  

We began our papier mache ice cream cone sculptures by using newspaper and masking tape to make the form. They first rolled a cone shape and filled it with paper.  They then focused on ripping the tape and creating Xs across the top of each "scoop" to secure the shape.

Once we had built cones with a decadent amount of scoops and made sure that the forms were solid, artists used strips of kraft paper and papier mache paste to add at least three layers of gooey goodness. We dipped each strip into the paste and then used our fingers like scissors to remove the excess goo. Some of our friends loved the feeling of the paste-- others were not so impressed. 

As the papier mache hardened and dried over Spring Break, we began to think about what kinds of flavors we’d like to add. To get some flavor inspiration, we read Jack Prelutsky’s poem, “Bleezer’s Ice Cream Store”:  

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,

I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,

there are flavors in my freezer

you have never seen before,

twenty-eight divine creations

too delicious to resist,

why not do yourself a favor,

try the flavors on my list:

COCOA MOCHA MACARONI

TAPIOCA SMOKED BALONEY

CHECKERBERRY CHEDDAR CHEW

CHICKEN CHERRY HONEYDEW

TUTTI-FRUTTI STEWED TOMATO

TUNA TACO BAKED POTATO

LOBSTER LITCHI LIMA BEAN

MOZZARELLA MANGOSTEEN

ALMOND HAM MERINGUE SALAMI

YAM ANCHOVY PRUNE PASTRAMI

SASSAFRAS SOUVLAKI HASH

SUKIYAKI SUCCOTASH

BUTTER BRICKLE PEPPER PICKLE

POMEGRANATE PUMPERNICKEL

PEACH PIMENTO PIZZA PLUM

PEANUT PUMPKIN BUBBLEGUM

BROCCOLI BANANA BLUSTER

CHOCOLATE CHOP SUEY CLUSTER

AVOCADO BRUSSELS SPROUT

PERIWINKLE SAUERKRAUT

COTTON CANDY CARROT CUSTARD

CAULIFLOWER COLA MUSTARD

ONION DUMPLING DOUBLE DIP

TURNIP TRUFFLE TRIPLE FLIP

GARLIC GUMBO GRAVY GUAVA

LENTIL LEMON LIVER LAVA

ORANGE OLIVE BAGEL BEET

WATERMELON WAFFLE WHEAT

I am Ebenezer Bleezer,

I run BLEEZER'S ICE CREAM STORE,

taste a flavor from my freezer,

you will surely ask for more. 

This poem got our brains going with lots of ideas for yummy (albeit, non-traditional!) flavors for our cones. As scholars wrote about and mixed up their paint “recipes” they added their flavors and toppings. They thought a lot about real ice cream cones as they worked.  For instance, you can't put a real ice cream cone down on a table-- you need to always hold it by the cone or put it on a plate if you need to take a break. Also, you need to add the ice cream BEFORE you add the toppings.  Finally, sometimes as you eat/work, ice cream can drip (and that's ok!).

Here are a few of our fabulous flavors.  We think Ben and Jerry would be proud. Would you like to try?

Dulce de Leche Blueberrylicious 

Pickle Vanilla Burger

Plum Gum Bubble

Guacamole

Fresh Sweet Peach Chunky Crunch

Periwinkle 

Crystals and Diamonds

Lemon Meringue Pie

Red Watermelon Peach Stew

Blazing Chunky Nature Mango

Juicy Fruity Chunky Cherry

Cotton Candy Whip

Butterfly Milk Sugar Water

Cherry Blossom

  Bon apetit!

Kindergarteners are WIRED for Success

Kindergarteners have been learning about American sculptor, Alexander Calder.  As a class, we’ve been looking at his wire sculptures and talking about what we notice and what we imagine.  We observed how some of his sculptures have bases and some hang from the ceilings (called mobiles).  Some are representational and others are more abstract.  We imagined skyscrapers, witches, planets, floating polyspots, mutant spider legs and more.

Our artists thought about how wires are just like lines that you can move and bend to create any type of line you want– zig zag, curly, spiral, straight, short, long, wavy and more!  

Next, we used wires to make our own sculptures.  We used Model Magic clay balls as our bases and manipulated the wires to create different kinds of lines and shapes.  Some of our artists had representations in mind (the Barclay Center, roller coasters, pizzas, etc.) while others made more abstract forms.

Here are a few of our finished sculptures: 

Finally, we went from 3D to 2D, using our sculptures as a still life. 

Like Calder (above), we painted pictures of our sculpture.  We used our knowledge of lines, observational drawing  and color mixing to create the beautiful paintings you see below!