Chesapeake Academy Art Show – 2009
Pre School Through Eighth Grade
Art through the Artists’ Eyes ~
Finding Meaning in Art
Preschool
“The Four Seasons” in the style of Pointillism
Painting in the style of pointillism made famous by George Seurat, Pre-School students work individually to create trees that represent the four seasons. Pointillism builds up the image from separate colored dots of paint which from a distance, merge together and appear to be areas of shaded tones.
Attempting to replicate an illustration from a book on classic tree shapes, students begin by drawing two parallel lines to create the tree’s trunk and diagonal lines for branches. Using q-tips as brushes, students ‘dot’ various shades of brown to color the bark. Students use cotton balls as well as their fingers to dot the background and surrounding details. For seasonal color on the tree, students dot with thin markers and paint pencils.
Stewart Hollingsworth
Bridger Vanderpool
Pre-Kindergarten - Thinking About Line and Color -
influenced by Wassily Kandinsky
Pre-kindergarten students splash into the colorful world of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky by reviewing his abstract art and discussing favorite pieces. Once the ten small art critics form some thoughts and preferences, they try their hands at painting like the master. Blocks of color, rioting on paper contrast with controlled lines that pre-kindergarteners describe as ‘curly’, ‘wavy’, ‘circley’, ‘straight’, and ‘patterned’.
Ayushi Gajar
Larkin Denton
One, Two, Three, From A to Z
Kindergarten Art
in the Style of Jasper Johns
As students examine the work of contemporary artist, Jasper Johns, particularly “Numbers in Color” and “Zero Through Nine”, they begin to think of numbers and letters as lines that can be used in making art. Students also look at the “Flag” paintings of Johns and think about the idea of using well-known objects for the subject of works of art. When using a recognizable subject, the art work becomes more about the experience of painting itself. With an age-appropriate understanding of this concept, students begin the work by painting numbers and/or letters in a sequence of their choice. After an appropriate drying time, students return to the work and explore color designs based on the line design figures they have painted.
Who knew such beauty existed in the simplicity of elementary figures?
Mary Malone Johnson
Ben Antonio
First Grade – Art Nouveau
Rock-A-Bye Baby
In the Style of Gustav Klimt
First grade students look at the art of Austrian-born artist Gustav Klimt, noticing the decorative qualities of the painting. We discuss the possibility of finding art in decorative things, such as material, wrapping paper and dishes. Students conclude that “everyday things” have color, line, shape and all of the elements that make up art. The Art Nouveau movement elevated decorative craft to the same status of fine art and this idea is the basis for Klimt’s work, “Baby” (Cradle). After designing the face of the baby, students divide the space around the face and below it, into approximately ten sections. Students focus on a variety of decorative pattern, using mixed media that includes marker, crayon, and chalk. As you can see in this work, Art is indeed all around us!
Lily Reihs
Hunter Purcell
Second Grade - Telling a Visual Story
in the Style of Paul Klee
Everyone loves a good story and when combined with making art, the outcome is sure to be beautiful!
Second Grade students look at the work of Paul Klee and “Sinbad the Sailor” which is based on Tales from the Arabian Nights. After discussing the narrative qualities of the painting, students notice that their eye is naturally drawn to the center of the painting. While the background is interesting because of Klee’s use of geometric shapes, it does not overpower the subject of the work. Students like the playful and almost dreamlike quality of Klee’s work.
Students begin by bringing a favorite book to art class. Some books are favorites from their preschool years, while others are current chapter or even non-fiction books. Students render a simple contour drawing in the center of the drawing space. Next students divide the background space, imitating Klee’s use of geometric shape. Carefully planning the color scheme of the background as well as the center of interest ensures that the visual emphasis goes to the subject first and secondly to the decorative background. Some students choose to include simple detail relevant to the story in the background. The use of watercolor crayons and watercolor pencils simulate the textural nature of Klee’s work.
Elizabeth Kellum
Thomas Wilson
Eliza Carr Schmidt
Walker Antonio
Third Grade - Contour Drawings
with a Splash of Jackson Pollock
What happens when you combine contour drawing and the abstract expressionist style of Jackson Pollock? Take a closer look and you will see!
Students begin by discussing contour drawings as being simple line drawings which define the edge of an object with some detail, and without the use of shading or color. Next students render contour drawings of as many as three views of their own shoe. Students outline their drawing with colored glue which, when dry, will leave a raised line. This acts as a barrier and helps to control the rhythm of the students’ use of mixed media color in the second part of this work. Some students choose to add colored glue in the background as well, as a way of dividing the space. Subsequently, students view Jackson Pollock’s “Lavender Mist”. Students immediately understand the unstructured and expressive nature that is the basis for the style of abstract expressionism. Using watercolor and salt, along with controlled paint-splattering, students imitate Pollock’s style on a smaller scale. The use of salt on watercolor instantly enhances a spontaneous, textural pattern which the students find intriguing.
Lindsey Silvernale
Trevor Revere
Francesa Wilson
Fourth Grade Colorists
work in the style of Morris Louis
Can a work of art be only about color? Is it possible to make a painting without a paintbrush? Fourth grade students answer these questions and more in a project that imitates the style of colorist painter, Morris Louis.
Students looked at Louis’ paintings, in particular “Kaf” and “Moving In”, as well as Helen Frankenthaler’s “Mother Goose Melody”. Both artists used thinned paint or stains, resulting in an expressive, allover color composition. Frankenthaler’s style had a profound impact on Louis, resulting in his trademark use of controlled paint “spills”.
Students imitate the style of Louis by using thinned paint, using one color at a time. Students use spoons to place a small amount of paint on the edge of their paper and with gravity as their guide, try to control the flow of the paint as it rolls down their paper. As colors are added, paint either flows into a stream of color or blazes a path of its own, through the painting. Students find that their results are amazing are unique.
Since the students are able to make many “test” paintings, they pick two of their favorite paintings and write about what they see in their work. Their writings are included here as a part of their work.
Jared Brown
Monica Waddy
Fifth Grade - A New Point of View
Drawings influenced by the work of
Georgia O’Keefe
Students begin this project by discussing the work of Georgia O’Keefe, who is most well-known for her close up view of flowers as well as her compositions influenced by the deserts of New Mexico. At first glance, students are unsure of what they are viewing due to the unusual point of view explored by the artist. Some images seem distorted simply because the artist has enlarged the subject. The use of vivid detail and color enhance the distortion.
Students begin by choosing an animal of interest and sketching the subject from a photograph. The objective in sketching the entire animal is to become familiar with the subject and to be able to answer the question: what does it really look like? After completion of preliminary sketches, students use viewfinders to ‘zoom’ in on an interesting part of the composition. The use of the viewfinder helps the students define the space of their new drawing. The enlargement becomes the final work with the students paying special attention to detail, color and texture. The use of oil pastel as color media improves this process. Can you identify the animals?
Collin Brown
Patrick Kelley
Taylor Goodwin
Emmaline Keesee
Sixth Grade - Adventures in Abstraction
Works influenced by Picasso and
the style of Cubism
Understanding the style of cubism can be overwhelming and for our purposes in sixth grade, we concentrate on two aspects. First, students understand that the style of Cubism simplifies objects into geometric shapes, rather realistic, natural shapes. Second, students wrestle with the idea that cubism is also about showing multiple angles at the same time.
Students look at the work of Pablo Picasso, in particular, “Three Musicians”. Students see that the objects are rendered in angular shapes. In viewing “Portrait of Dora Maar”, students easily notice that the face contains a frontal and profile view. Thus the idea of showing different angles simultaneously becomes more apparent. In Picasso’s “Las Meninas”, students become exposed to another new idea about the artist. Picasso liked to recreate art masterpieces in the cubist style and in this case, he borrowed from Velazquez’s masterpiece, “Las Meninas” and created his own. We compare the angular shapes of the individuals in the paintings to the realistic renderings of Velazquez.
Last students are presented with a small group of art masterpieces and asked to choose one to recreate in a cubist style, focusing on geometric shapes, multiple points of view or a combination of the two. Students choose from works by Matisse, Monet, DaVinci and Van Gogh, to name a few.
Do you recognize the re-creations
Matthew Moss
Madison Owens
Nick Green
Seventh Grade -
A Meeting of Portrait and Poetry -
A work influenced by the art of Charles Demuth
Is it possible to paint a portrait of someone without making a likeness of the person in question? As the seventh grade examines “The Figure 5 in Gold” by Charles Demuth, students realize that, in fact, a portrait can represent someone without an image of the individual, if the portrait contains things associated with that specific person.
Charles Demuth, known for his delicate watercolors as well as his paintings of modern urban and industrial landscapes (the latter earning him the classification of a “Precisionist” artist), painted an abstract portrait of his friend, poet William Carlos Williams. (“The Figure 5 in Gold” is one of a series of eight abstract portraits of friends that Demuth made between 1924 and 1929.) The painting is based on a poem by Williams, entitled “The Great Figure”, which describes Williams’ experience of seeing a red fire engine with the number 5 painted on it, racing through the city streets. Students read the poem and compare certain words to the way in which the painting is composed. For example, the word “tense” in the poem is reflected in the visual tension created by the multiple images of the number five. The craftsmanship of the poem is imitated in the precision of the painting. Objects referenced in the poem are recognizable in the painting and the names and initials of the poet can be seen among geometric shapes within the painting. In short, “The Figure 5 in Gold” is a portrait of the artist’s friend not because it a physical likeness, but because it consists of an accumulation of images associated with the poet.
Students borrow from this idea by creating a portrait of someone they know and/or admire by first making a list of things they associate with that person. Next, students make multiple ‘thumbnail’ sketches to explore different design ideas. After choosing the most successful design, students begin the final work in the media of their choice. In addition to the visual work, students write poetry about their person of interest, as a part of a poetry unit in Language Arts. Student writing is displayed as a part of the visual piece.
Jennifer Radcliffe
Soren Jespersen
Reese Rogers
Emily Szyperski
Matthew Bowman
Eighth Grade - Natural Sculpture Installation
in the style of Andrew Goldsworthy
Eighth grade students study the work of British-born sculptor and photographer, Andrew Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy, well known for his natural constructions, uses color and geometric form found in natural materials such as stone, trees, mud, grass, leaves and even snow and ice. Without the use of machines, Goldsworthy creates visual displays and photographs them at their ‘height’ before they begin to decay.
Students view two online videos entitled “Rivers and Tides” (where the artist documents a construction [www.youtube.com]) and “Autumn Works” (a compilation of visual works [video.google.com]). Students end their visual survey of the artist’s work by examining “Garden of Stones”, a permanent installation in New York City at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, dedicated to the memory of victims and survivors of the Holocaust. As students discuss the enormous symbolic significance of this piece, they understand that creating meaning is an important part of the creative process.
As preparation for the Goldsworthy construction, students write reflections of their thoughts regarding “Garden of Stones” in Writer’s Workshop class. Next, students meet for an extended art class to construct their installations. Natural materials are collected (not cut down) from the nature trail, soccer field and surrounding campus. The environment of the construction is of the student’s choosing and students work individually or with a group. Young artists consider how their art works with the surrounding environment, and how their art will grow, stay and/or decay. The finished piece is photographed.
The creative process of the student is as unique as each artist. While some students begin their piece with a symbolic meaning as an objective, others find meaning as they construct. For the final phase of the work, students write reflections about the meaning of their art and process in pieces composed in Writer’s Workshop class. The writing is exhibited along with the photograph, as a part of the work. Throughout this process, students post their writings and photographs on the Chesapeake Academy student ‘wiki’ page where classmates, teachers and parents are able to give constructive online feedback.
