Monday, December 16, 2013

From Cypriot to Clemente: Portrait Artists in the Making

I stumbled on these portraits outside of Andrew's class one day.







His students are expert portrait artists, I thought. I asked Andrew about their process. It started simply. Looking in the mirror, students explored their own features then made portraits in clay concentrating on getting the texture of their hair just right.





Next they travelled, physically and conceptually, back and forth in time, to focus on figurative sculpture from ancient Cyprus to modernist and contemporary painting and photography. At the Met they saw Cypriot sculptures and Chuck Close's work. (He used photographs as the beginning of a painted portrait).




They also studied the portraits of painters like Kirchner, Matisse and Picasso.



Once students grasped some different approaches to making portraits they practiced taking photos of themselves and then traced them to learn more about the lines and shapes in their own face. This led to another portrait using oil pastel. 






Francesco Clemente's watercolor portraits provided stylistic and technical inspiration for the final versionStudents again took original photographs, enlarged them on the copy machine and
traced over them to get the lines right. They transferred their tracings to large watercolor paper
and used Clemente's wet-on-wet techniques to add dimension and expression.

Working hard, taking time, using culture for inspiration and...voila! Thank you, Andrew, for your words, your photos and your ingenuity!



Have you ever tried to make a self portrait? Tell us about it- post a comment below.

EXTRAVAGANZA 2013: A Grand Collaboration of Wit and Will

The packed auditorium writhed with onlookers whooping, cheering and participating at every opportunity. Their enthusiasm and support coming in tidal waves in response to each and every performer. Working together or alone the children reminded me that simply being on stage is a feat for many. For others it seems they were born there. In each case, the dance between our performing students and the parents, friends, and teachers supporting them captured two essential qualities that I love about our community: courage and tenacity.

Thank you performers, thank you to everyone who helped them, and thank you to Jonathan for taking the time to make this video.

What do you love about Extravaganza? Post a comment below!

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Fourth Grade Poetry Labs

Our fourth grade introduced their poetry curriculum through Poetry Labs. Children were divided into five mixed groups and each of the teachers developed a different sensory experience. They planned a morning of exploratory activities for the children to connect taste, touch, smell, vision and sounds to memories and emotions.  Children moved from class to class for a brief presentation and lab focusing on each of the five senses.  The poetry labs were a source of inspiration and "seed ideas" for future poems.

Lemon
by Delilah Shapiro

Scrunch
my lips
blink
madly
soften
phew

In Josh’s lab, the children listened to Miles Davis’ It Never Enters My Mind and recorded how the music affected them – images, feelings, memories, etc. Joshua wrote the sound “makes me feel sad like when I left one of my toys when I was little” and Luna’s response was also sad, “like the day I had to give away my cat.” In Dolores’s sight lab, Cully wrote the boa constrictor photo, “scares me to the bones.”  Meanwhile, Talya was in Elissa’s class writing about how the scent of vanilla reminded her of “Pancakes on a January day.”  In Chris’s room, each child had the chance to experience objects, including a piece of deerskin, a pointed chunk of log, nutshells and forest floor objects, and an animal horn. Tallulah thought the animal horn would make a good back scratcher, while Rebecca thought the log looked like the tip of a giant pencil.  In Cora’s workshop, the children participated in a tasting lab, tasting ginger, honey, salt, chocolate, and lemon juice.  This inspired Anna’s description, “the spicy pain of ginger.”

Children learned about poetic devices, including using comparison, onomatopoeia, simile and metaphor.  

    Honey (excerpt)
       By Sophia Kyriacou

taste
sweet like a
lullaby waiting to
be heard
feels smooth and slippery
down my
t
h
r
o
a
t


Consider how much more the students got from being divided into smaller groups and from the careful collaboration of the grade level team.  Know too, that high expectations were set with children being told to “push themselves” to use adjectives to describe the experiences and then connect them to memories.

At The Park
 
(excerpt)
by Dexter Pakula

...at the park
I climb
the smooth
cold columns
I smell
the sticky tint of metal
I hear children running
the soft drumming
I swing to the beat
of the stomping feet

From pre-K through Grade 5, reading and writing poetry is part of the curriculum at BNS. Over the years we find that many children fall in love with poetry, enjoying the rhythms and images of poems, especially when they find poetry allows them a special way to express feelings and memories.

We can hardly wait to hear the poem that will come from this line: I see a thunderstorm silently ker-splashing on the wet ground. 

-From Weekly Letter, Oct 31, 2013 by Anna Allanbrook and poems supplied by 5th Grade team

Saturday, November 16, 2013

First Grade ALL DAY ART DAY! by Jenny

Inspired by the BNS 3rd grade Art Mix-Up Day, I planned a day of art for our class. We suspended our regular schedule and had four hour-long art sessions all day. Students rotated through the four activities taught by guest teachers, Rose (Cy’s mom) Stan (Jenny’s neighbor and local musician) and Annette (Jenny’s BF from college).

Stan’s clay workshop was the messiest, but also the most hands on and the most written about afterwards.




Annette’s leaf rubbings were also multi-step, turned out beautifully and are so seasonal! These are hanging in Arbo’s hallway now.



Rose’s printing activity was the most kid-friendly and her red, white and black prints are outside of our classroom.




My mosaic activity was the most colorful, but was also the most challenging.



Some children were frustrated by the difficulty in controlling the tiny paper squares, but the results are striking. These are also hanging outside of the classroom.



The most intriguing aspect of the day, was how engaged all of the students were, even at the end of the day. Students rose to each challenge and worked with focus and enthusiasm.

What did I learn? I learned that it is crucial that we have art in our school day, often, if not daily. I learned that my students are very talented artistically. I learned that they can focus and attend to tasks when motivated, when the challenge is just right-not overwhelming. And, I am reminded that working in small groups is something teachers ought to be able to do more often. Thanks to all of the parent volunteers who helped out and many, many thanks to our guest teachers Rose, Stan and Annette, for coming up, coming in, bringing supplies and teaching all day long, to and make this great day possible!

-Jenny

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Third Grade: Art Mix-Up Day

This year, third grade started something new: Art Mix-Up Day. The purpose of art mix-up day is to teach children some of the art techniques and tools that they will be using in 3rd grade. We wanted to give students a foundation that we can build on later in the year and that will enable them to become more independent.

During the first art mix-up day, Steve and Nancy taught techniques for using colored pencils; Diane and Ilana taught six different watercolor techniques;



 and Malika and Katherine introduced torn-paper collage.



This week, Steve and Nancy introduced clay - specifically, how to make a slab and a coil, and how to use scoring to join the pieces together. 


Malika and Katherine led a second session on collage, this time introducing colored tissue paper (on a white background) and scissors.  With new materials to expand their repertoire, students continued experimenting with composition, layering, 2D and 3D, and color contrast, while also discovering ways to take advantage of the tissue paper "bleeding."  




Diane, supported by Rachel and BNS/BCS alum Elsa, taught brush painting.  


Students learned the word "precision" as they learned techniques for making thick and thin lines and how to vary the hue (or "value") of the black ink.  This should prepare them well for their apprenticeship next month with Mr. Choey, the Chinese brush painting teacher from the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens who will be coming to work with the 3rd grade.

Thank you, Anna and Katherine for providing this text. Thank you, Third Grade team for providing this awesome experience and for documenting it so we can share it!

Thursday, October 24, 2013

First Grade Tap Root Prints: Pinkalicious




These are the artifacts of a first grade investigation into tap roots. Looking at all that glorious pink, I'm guessing beets were involved. Take note of the compositional variety between each print and think about everything these first graders must have learned about a beet's inside and outside! It occurred to me that it is not that often you see a large board displaying so much pink in a school. Lucky us. 

It got me thinking about how pink often inspires passionate commentary. Either in favor or against. I love pink but bemoan that it is stereotypically relegated to girls. My son loved it until he hit 4 and my husband wore it at our wedding! I remembered a refreshing essay by David Byrne about pink that I read a few years back. In it, he discovered that pink was a color designated for men prior to 1950! (Similarly blue was the color for women-thanks to Queen Victoria who loved indigo-until I don't know when). Gender biases and assignments aside, Byrne also discovered an interesting fact about pink: in a study, it lowered the heart rate of prisoners. Whether you like it or not, pink is a pretty powerful color! These prints, whether its the pink or the thought of the children engaging with beets in this way, definitely lower 
my blood pressure. 




Friday, October 11, 2013

Pre-k Paintings

In Jacqueline and Pauline's room they hang student's paintings vertically on the walls in stacks. Each stack belongs to one student and each time a student makes new painting, it is placed on the top of the stack, becoming the new image seen. The display is dynamic, ever-changing. I love these daily changes but I especially love the endless variety of the individual paintings. 

For example, some children love edges and symmetry. And they might explore the viscosity of paint.



Some children stick to the center, mixing colors. They might become aware of the marks made by the motions of their arms. I think I see a blue face too!



Some children work in layers.



Some work fast and energetically.



Some keep their shapes separate and use the white of the paper like its a color.



Some make all shapes touching and they fill the whole page.



Some create dense masses.



Some explore lines and shapes. Circles usually come first. Dots are often popular at this stage.



I'll bet some of these paintings have a story. But I know some of them don't. Some of them are about the joy of paint. Thank you, pre-k teachers for providing ample opportunity for our children to paint. 
Do you paint? What are your paintings about?

Saturday, September 28, 2013

First Glimpses: Finished Leaves

Leaves still in the kiln, freshly fired! Thank you, Janine Sopp, for lending your kiln expertise. Installation coming SOOOON.




Portraits of K

Picasso famously said, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child." I sometimes wonder how Picasso would explain what he meant by these remarks. I imagine it had something to do with the unselfconscious truths drawings like these kindergarten self portraits reveal.  In all their variety- 
wild, self-contained, minimal, expansive, chaotic, dense, elegant and simple-we see a glimpse of how these children are so much the same and also so very,very different from one another. 

Thank you, Janine Sopp, for sending these.  Thank you, Kori, for providing this opportunity for our children. 













What creative expressions are your kids engaging with in the classroom? Please tell us about it! Contact me at bnsartsalive@gmail.com 

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Third Grade Africa Museum: 2013

At the Third Grade Africa Museum last spring there was so much to see: poems, books, collages dioramas, murals, diagrams, paper mache, clay, watercolors and more. Through these diverse media third graders explored Africa as a habitat and ecosystem. Animals and plants filled the hallways in a dense tapestry reminiscent of the rainforest itself. Here is a glimpse of the treasures:












 

 

 

                 


If you are interested in blogging about YOUR child's classroom please contact me at bnsartsalive@gmail.com.