HAPPENINGS @the Lower Campus JAN.FEB 2017
A Celebration of Accomplishments Highlights from the Winter Concert
The PreK-7th grade Winter Concert took place on February 5th at the Sparhawk Theatre. It was a wonderful display of community music making and provided a window into the various musical experiences our students engage in from singing to creative movement to instrumentation. Congratulations to all for exhibiting their courage, dedication, enthusiasm, professionalism and music literacy, making for a wonderful evening of entertainment. Spirits were uplifted through the magic of music! Back in the classroom, students have been mixing it up with fun musical games and activities and have begun working on new pieces for an outdoor music festival.
Why do we Draw? Excerpts from Why Drawing Needs to be a Curriculum Essential, an article by Anita Taylor, Dean of Bath School of Art and Design
“With a history as long and intensive as the history of our culture, the act of drawing remains a fundamental means to translate, document, record and analyse the worlds we inhabit. The role of drawing in education remains critical, and not just to the creative disciplines in art and design for which it is foundational...As a primary visual language, essential for communication and expression, drawing is as important as the development of written and verbal skills. The need to understand the world through visual means would seem more acute than ever; images transcend the barriers of language, and enhance communications in an increasingly globalised world.� I came upon this article recently, as I was simultaneously reacquainting myself with the Reggio Emilia approach, which puts great emphasis on drawing in the early years as a form of communication and documentation. Sparhawk Art students in all of the grades have been working on various drawing techniques and approaches. They are learning to activate their keen powers of observation and acquiring tools to help translate what they see and experience onto paper. In the weeks past, the different age groups have explored topics such as perspective, contour, value and observation in their drawing exercises. ~Catherine
Student drawings from the Albatrosses, Bluebirds, and Purple Gallinules exhibiting Perspective, Value and Contour.
On Side Note... Bird Update After many stages and phases of the incubation/creation process, there are now fully-formed, magnificent bird sculptures inhabiting the Art Room. Left: A quetzal made by a 1st grade student. Right: A purple gallinule made by a 4th grade student (in the Purple Gallinules!)
As part of our regular practice, we are perpetually examining and analyzing works of art. To create art you must both know and explore it on vast levels. We must do , we must see, we must question, and we must think. What is abstract and what is representational art? Across the grades we have been exploring these two concepts. Ask a PreK or Kindergarten student! They recently learned the difference between abstract and representational art and when classifying particular examples, came to the conclusion that some pieces are a bit of both and cannot be one or the other. Wow is that intellectual thinking of 4 and 5 year olds or what?!
Building Visual Literacy FAR LEFT: Students support each other in placing shapes together to form “Mat Man.” LEFT: As we play with various poses by changing position of the “Mat Man” shapes, students mimmic these gestures with their bodies, creating muscle memory for future drawing challenges.
Above LEFT: Students use their keen powers of observation to create a representational drawing of “Mat Man” as seen on the RIGHT
Exploring the Representational & Abstract BOTTOM ROW: Using mirrors and picture references, students exercise observational skills in studying and illustrating parts of the face for a future collage project.
Drawing from Observation
Above LEFT: Students play with the shapes used to form “Mat Man” in a configuration that is abstract or “not Mat Man.” RIGHT: A representational drawing of something abstract! This is a student’s observational drawing of the shape configuration on the left.