Salutations Artists, Students, Teachers, Parents, and Friends,
It has been another wonderful and busy week for ART YARD BKLYN!
After this email, my weekly recaps are migrating from email to posts on our website. If you would like to keep up with ART YARD BKLYN recaps, please sign up to receive posting notifications from our website: https://www.artyardbklyn.org/blog.
While you are on our website, be sure to take a look at the OPPORTUNITIES tab – I’ve posted a link to get tickets (free to public school students) to a special screening of Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest, a persuasive and elegant film with a strong message about tolerance, respect for women, and the need for compassion.
The tickets come to us through Young Audience Program of the French Institute and the Alliance Française.
"The movie has a terrific flair for arabesque patterning, a gemlike luminosity of surface and a handsome, classical cast of mind." - The New York Times
"Friends" at PS 770 in Crown Heights used their newly acquired (or, in some cases, perfected their existing) skills with scissors, glue sticks, and identification of shapes to make colorful collages based on their still-life pencil drawings from a previous lesson.
Teaching Artist Fatima Traore demonstrated the proper usage of scissors (designed for little hands) and overall scissors-in-classroom etiquette. Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st grade friends learned how to correctly pass and receive a pair of scissors and the importance of, while in use, keeping themselves and others safe.
Using decorative patterned and textured paper (actually, large squares of wallpaper samples), students cut their shapes and/or hunted through stacks of pre-cut pieces to create/find shapes and colors to fit their needs. With Fatima as their guide, students carefully arranged their shapes into pumpkins, vases, and flowers in abstract formats by placing and gluing onto 11"x14" Bristol paper.
Some covered their entire pages while others opted to create mixed-media pieces and will finalize their works with colored pencils or markers in an upcoming session.
During critiques, friends discussed the works on display as well as their updated vocabulary works and art terms - recap, transformation, circular, and mixed media. Pre-K friend Diego was fascinated by the prospect of working in mixed media - so much so that he reminded his teacher to add "mixed media" to the classroom's Words Beginning With M board.
This week, Teaching Artist Quentin Williamston continued to explore the medallions with pre-K, kindergarten, and first graders.
Quentin describes his motivation for this lesson: “I was inspired by two prints done by Portia Munson - May Apples mixed media 2002 and Hyacinth Rain, mixed media 2002 - which I see as prime examples of natural and beautiful medallions, creating a kaleidoscope-like effect. Munson created her Mandalas series to address the sudden change in her life, which makes this artwork a perfect inspiration for ART YARD’s Time of Transformation!”
In this week’s iteration friends were learning new artmaking skills as Quentin demonstrated how to work with stencils. Students learned to use their non-dominant hand to carefully hold the stencil in place while tracing the perimeter. Quentin’s hand-made stencils included flowers and several geometric forms.
Our enthusiastic little artists filled their papers with beautiful stencil work and layers of decorative drawings in crayon and pencil. The children and their classroom teachers spoke eloquently about the process and the work created.
We are all looking forward to continuing our lessons next week!
If you would like to keep up with ART YARD BKLYN recaps, don’t forget to sign up on our website https://www.artyardbklyn.org/blog!
Best wishes for a delightful and inspiring week!
