Recent work by the artists at PS 307

2nd Grade

2nd graders looked at Romare Bearden's collage, "The Block" and the collage illustrations of Ezra Jack Keats which portray city scenes. Students first sketched a city block, thinking of all the different things they might see of a city block. Then they began creating collages of city blocks (these collages are still in progress). Students are learning about art history and how to closely observe art and illustrations, noticing details and thinking about what techniques artists use. Through sketching a city block, they are developing drawing skills while learning the process of sketching as a tool for getting their ideas on paper and planning for a project. Students combined personal imagery from their own experiences with city blocks and imagined imagery. As they begin to use mixed papers to create their city block collage, they are learning to make matches between materials and their ideas, and how a new idea can be inspired by a material. They are developing cutting and gluing skills and thinking about layering and overlap. 

above: detail of The Block by Romare Bearden and a page from The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Kindergarten

Kindergarteners created oil pastel and watercolor resists of a place that is special to them. We had a class brainstorm discussion, listing special places, what you would see at those places, and how we could draw them with oil pastels. Then we saw what happens when you paint with watercolors over oil pastel drawings. Students learned that oil and water do not mix and therefore oil pastels and watercolor don't mix so the oil pastels push away or resist the watercolors. Students also noticed that the watercolor paint made the oil pastels look like "glow in the dark", making the colors of the oil pastels look brighter when next to a darker color than they did just on the white paper.