2/3s Create a Book About the Hudson River

The 2/3 students are each researching a specific topic as they investigate the life and history of the Hudson River. They will be using their "eyes of a scientist" in art class as they do careful observational drawings of the specific fish or flora they have chosen to study. These will be added to a painted background page which will include their research on their chosen topic as well as a poem. The individual pages will then be assembled into a class book on the Hudson River.

Drafting the blue crab

A water snake emerging

An alum came back to help with the book project

Working on accurate colors

Three finished pages

K/1s Study Native Birds and Animal

Working from photographs of the bird or animal that each student is studying in class, the K/1s will apply their observational skills and their newly acquired ability to see how complicated shapes can be seen more simply as basic ovals, circles and such, as they draw pictures and then create collages of the creature they are researching in the classroom.

Observing shapes in a photo while sketching a deer

Feathers on a red tailed hawk

Spots on the back of a frog

Painting water over the colored pencil around a cloud

Finishing touches on the water under this sizable frog

Beginning to collage a tree with an owl

Tearing paper for the red fox

Raccoon in collage and drawing

                                               A chipmunk, a duck and a deer all in drawing and collage

Middle School Learns About Ming Vases

With two Chinese students in our middle school this year, it seemed like the ideal time to all learn something about Chinese Ming vases. These vases date back to the Ming dynasty, 1368,  and are characteristically made of white porcelain with cobalt blue decoration. The shapes were quite specific, generally having a narrow neck and designs featuring fish, birds, floral motifs, vines and iconography. Using oil pastels covered with white acrylic paint, the students tried their hand at demonstrating their understanding of this art form by scratching designs into their rendition of large vase shapes that were then cut out and mounted on black paper.

Creating a stencil for the initial vase shape

Filling in with blue oil pastel

Tracing the stencil onto final paper

Beginning to scratch in the images

Blue images are beginning to emerge

Lettering the name in Chinese characters

                                                             Three finished works