Friday, October 14, 2011

AIR - Visual Arts for South Pas schools

Here are some stories from our AIR Program teachers who currently teach arts education at Marengo Elementary School. 

Teaching Artist Grades 3 - 5: Sarit Swanborn 
Wow! What a week!  My third, fourth, and fifth graders truly seemed to relish this interactive drawing session utilizing blind contour and gesture drawing techniques.  The pace seemed rhythmic and highly engaging as students explored drawing with different line weights, close observation of their fingers and hands, and theatrical gesture posing for one another.  The most pleasant surprise of all, however, was to watch students, teachers, and even many parent volunteers focus with intensity…accessing page after page in their quest to capture the spirit and line of their hands or a student model in an action pose—using ink pens, then soft charcoal pencils to record the essence of their subject over and over again. This studio-like atmosphere was nothing short of exhilarating, and yet offered an appropriate challenge for our introductory dip into the corridors of the moving body as an art form.  I cannot wait for week two, as we explore classical proportions of the body through wire sculpture!
Teaching Artist  K - 2: Sarah Dugan
The classroom teacher was reading a poem about leaves when I arrived so I instantly started with their poem and all the art within it. The word "hue" was in the poem and I took out my leaf samples. The poem couldn't have been a better transition for my point/line lesson as we looked at all the lines within the leaves. We then read the book and did work in our art journals, then did gesture drawings. I didn't want to suggest the gesture drawing models stand on the teacher's desk in her class, but after two, the teacher suggested it and rearranged the entire room to do it. She was so thrilled to see them learning "useful skills." We then did the scavenger hunt outside and the teacher said the students will definitely write stories in the end with her.