By artfreak | Published:
February 15, 2010
The first grade art class spent months working on creating their own architectural models of buildings from New York City. The project was inspired by a book called “A Walk in New York City” as well as the students own creative art books they made in art class. The student’s learned alot about the architecture of New York City and created buildings by using cardboard boxes and recycled objects such as plastic containers and cans. Ms. Mac collected and the students contributed toward the recycled materials bin that they had alot of materials to choose from. Each student was assisted by Ms. Mac to construct their building using hot glue. They then painted their buildings using tempera paint and special sponges and sponge brushes. The student’s also created box subway cars using shoe boxes, paint and cardboard wheels. The final work was placed on exhibit as an installation on the Dutchess Day School theater stage. The subway cars were placed within the exhibit by winding around the buildings and the children could walk on stage in and around their work to experience the show.
By artfreak | Published:
February 15, 2010
The fourth grade had the most wonderful day with artist Vickie Fremont, an artist from NYC, who came for an afternoon to create African puppets from recycled art materials. She came with a big bag in hand that had African fabrics, yarn, wire armatures, art books, African music cd’s and African beads. Every child received a bag that had their own materials inside to create a puppet. Vickie started the workshop off with a description of the project while allowing us to relax to the musical rhythms of soothing African music. She had with her an example of an African puppet that she created and explained the process clearly. The children were quietly working as well as enamored by her presence. Vickie guided the students through the challenging process of using yarn for hair that was attached to the pre-made wire armature for the body. She then had them add fabric that was pre-cut for the clothing. The outfits were created with layers of varying patterned and colored fabrics. The children loved choosing their own fabrics for the hair and the waist line. The final touch was the African beads placed on a special length of string that wrapped around the puppet’s neck. Vickie spent time upon completing the work with a question and answer time while explaining about her life as an artist and her childhood growing up in the Cameroon, Africa. She speaks Cameroon as well as French. She spent her childhood in the Cameroon and France, but later as an adult moved to New York City 8 years ago. She was very interesting and the children were very engaged listening to her stories of growing up in African compared their childhood experience. She explained that she had to create her own toys as a child and did the same for her two sons. She did not go to a store to buy toys or much of anything and so this was common practice to make art objects for play.
The children loved their puppets and the experience to work with an artist such as Vickie. Vickie Fremont’s art and jewerly can be seen on her website at www.vickiefremont.com
This amazing workshop was made possible by one of our own Dutchess Day Parent in support of the arts and art education. The children’s recycled art African puppets will be placed on exhibit at the Young Emerging Artists of the Hudson Valley multi school art show at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum on April 16th for the “Trash to Treasure” theme.
By artfreak | Published:
February 15, 2010
The fifth grade art class is scheduled to exhibit their paintings in a show called Hudson River School Painters Revisited at the Rhinebeck Savings in Rhinebeck, NY branch from February 27th to March 31st.
The Fifth grade art class at Dutchess Day School has a yearly project in studying the Hudson River Valley in conjunction with their History class. The class studies the work of the Hudson River School and focuses on the leading founder, Thomas Cole and his student, Frederic Edwin Church. The students spend months studying varying artists from this movement. Each student choses an artist and a painting by the artist to copy for their own painting. The student studies intensively the composition, the coloring, the lighting and the fine detail of the original painting to reproduce in their own image. They attempt to capture the look and atmosheric feel of the original painting. This is a terrific challenge and it takes many layers of paint to get the effect and lighting that the Hudson River School painters are so famous for.
The students are encouraged to push their painting skills and knowledge of color more than they ever realized they were capable of. The final work is a testament to their hard work and hours of studying and painting. This exhibit is a wonderful example of the collaborative work in the Art and History programs at Dutchess Day School.
Available to you now is an art book that includes the students art history information on their artist as well as an image of their painting. To order your own personal “Hudson River School Painters Revisited” art book go to Ms. Mac’s shutterfly art site at:
By artfreak | Published:
February 12, 2010
By artfreak | Published:
February 12, 2010
The fifth grade art class went on a field trip with Ms. Mac and Mrs. Yates to Olana; Home and art studio of artist Frederic Edwin Church on a beautiful sunny day. The trip was a bus ride up to Hudson, New York, where Church built his Middle Eastern inspired home he named Olana during the 1860′s. Church was one of the lead painters of the Hudson River School movement and was very successful in showing and selling his work for a high price. He spent his time in his home in New York City, but loved his life and studio at Olana best. He traveled around the world to paint, but always came back to the Hudson Valley as he found it to be the most beautiful landscapes.
The students had a tour of Olana as well as participated in an outdoor drawing workshop with Ms. Mac. The students created pastel drawings of the landscape outside of Olana that looked down to the Hudson River and across to the Catskill Mountains. The view was breathtaking and the students were inspired by the beauty and colors. We traveled south from Hudson to Red Hook to hike at Scenic Hudson’s Poets Walk. This was an opportunity to see the landscape from a lower elevation on a path that leads you down to the Hudson river’s edge. Olana gave us a view from a high elevation looking down and at Poet’s Walk we were low to the river and had a very different perspective. We hiked on a long winding path toward the river and had a chance to sit quietly at the paths’ end to think and listen to the sounds of nature. There was not a peep from anyone for several minutes and only the sound of the wind and the slapping water was heard. What a magnificent moment! Enjoy looking at some photographs here from our day.
You may go to www.olana.org to learn more about Frederic Church and Olana Historic State Park
By artfreak | Published:
December 17, 2009
This is a wonderful art book that has pictures of sunflower still lifes and writing by our own second graders at DDS. The colorful pastel drawings were created in art class this fall during lessons on the artist Vincent Van Gogh. The students were inspired by the sunflower paintings by Van Gogh and learning about his life and struggles as an artist. We decided to write about his life and work and compile each child’s own words and thoughts about Van Gogh into a beautiful hard cover book through the online company Shutterfly.com. Each student has two pages in the book, one with a image of his or her drawing and the other with his or her writing on the artist. The book is a perfect example of how we work with history and art to teach lessons and how we as colleagues collaborate in creating a project such as this. The book will be used in a reading assignment in the classroom, as a history lesson in the homeroom and in art class or even in the library. Mrs. Potter and Ms. Mac wanted to create a book such as this to have available in the lobby for both present and prospective families to view while waiting for a meeting or simply relaxing on our couch. The book will show these readers an example of the kind of interdisciplinary work we do at DDS.
Go to http://artbook.shutterfly.com to view the photo book called “The Life and Art of Vincent Van Gogh” written by the second graders of Dutchess Day School
This project could not have been made without the support of the teachers and administration of Dutchess Day School.
By artfreak | Published:
October 26, 2009
8th Grade at MOMA sculpture garden
The eighth graders went to New York City with Ms. Mac and Ms. Bialek to visit the Museum of Modern Art and to the Majestic Theater for a theater production of “Phantom of the Opera”. At MOMA we had a private tour called the Modern Lense led by an art educator named Ardina. She had planned on the tour based on the present curriculum in art class that deals with the sculpture mixed media portrait’s that each student is creating. The students are creating these sculptures in class using a styrofoam mannequin head and any mixed media they feel fits to their design. The work exhibits a portrait of any kind, either of an existing or deceased person as well as a unique design of their own. The sculptures convey an emotion or a story about the person while lending themselves to guiding the viewer to conjure up their own response. The tour at MOMA led us to view works by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso and Andre Breton that deal with portraiture in painting, printmaking and sculpture. Each work of art we viewed had a unique approach to creatively portraying a person’s portrait while telling a story that was deeper than any of us realized at first. With the guidance and interpretation our tour guide we grew to appreciate and understand the work. It was a fabulous tour and we learned alot as well as had the opportunity to quickly move through the many galleries in the museum that excited us to want to return with our families at another visit. The museum generously offered free student and family museum passes as a gift. Here are some pictures from our visit to better help you to see the work of art that we studied and to see our Dutchess Day students listening and looking at modern art.
The tour at the Museum of Modern art was designed to support the art curriculum at Dutchess Day School.
By artfreak | Published:
October 25, 2009
By artfreak | Published:
October 25, 2009
The class has been intensively studying the work of artist Pablo Picasso and the movement of art that he became famous for called “Cubism”. Some say he was the father of the cubist movement, but this is not completely true. He did become well known for his cubist paintings and sculptures, but other artists such as Paul Cezanne, a cubist painter, was really the father of the movement and inspiration, but also George Braque, who worked closely with Picasso as a cubist sculptor. We all agree that some of the work that Picasso created is the best cubist examples and he took the style of work to another level artistically. The third graders have done similar work as Picasso by creating new versions of this style that no other young artists have. The students created self portraits in the cubist style using craypas on paper. They looked at examples of Picasso’s cubist portraits from the early and later stage of the movement. We were most inspired by the later. We looked closely at the portraits Picasso did of his muse Dora Mar and loved the bold colors and sharp edged shapes. Each student used a mirror to capture their image and use as a guide in the drawing. The work can be seen here in some photo examples. The class has now moved onto creating cubist cardboard sculptures that are inspired by Picasso’s cubist guitar wall reliefs. The students have a real guitar in the art room to view and by cutting up and hot gluing cardboard of various sizes and textures they are creating their own 3d design of a cubist guitar. The work will be left natural in color and may only have small additional material such as string, wire and paper tubing in the work.
By artfreak | Published:
October 13, 2009
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African Drumming workshop
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African Mask drawing project
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Fourth Grade at Socrate’s Park in Queens, NY
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Students pose next to an Isamu Noguchi Sculpture after viewing a photograph of Isamu leaning on this same sculpture.
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- African Drumming workshop
The fourth graders visited the Museum for African Art (MFAA) and the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Long Island City, Queens, NY on October 1, 2009. It was an exciting art field trip that supports the lessons on Africa in art and in history with Mrs. Bettigole. The students are studying African masks in how they are made, what materials are used to create them in different regions or countries in Africa and how they are used in ceremonies. The MFAA educator Dana Elmquist, had the children try on an assortment of masks and draw them using pencil on paper. The workshop also included a drumming session. It was fun and really interesting to us all. The Isamu Noguchi Museum was fascinating and unique. We had a tour of Noguchi’s carved stone sculptures that were mostly abstract forms. He was a Japanese American artist whose work ranged from furniture, paper lamps, sculptures, fountains and playgrounds. He created the museum to house his work and originally had a studio next door. Across the street is Socrate’s Park, a sculpture park with a view of Manhattan, where we had an opportunity to run and play around all the outdoor artwork.
African Mask drawing project
Fourth Grade at Socrate's Park in Queens, NY
These are some examples of the students long term art projects that were created at home throughout the quarter. The students will have created four art projects throughout the school year. The students have to propose a project to Ms. Mac and then work on it at home during the term. The work is presented in school at the end of the term in front of their classmates. The students are encouraged to create art work that they feel is challenging or explores new ideas and art materials they have not worked with before. The work ranges from students learning how to sew or learning to photograph and manipulate the work on photo shop. There are students who have continued to work in materials that are familiar to them such as collage, but move ahead to using the materials in a new manner. One student used newspaper a
nd magazines to assemble jewelry that was finally varnished for durability. Another student has for the past year been creating art objects from duct tape including a dress that will be presented later in March. It is a great way for students to create new art work that is of interest to them over weeks and months in the comfort of their own home. They must plan and time manage the process so that the final work is well done and shows creativity. The class presentation is always interesting and each student learns to speak about their work and place it into a class art display for the school community to enjoy.
