An after school art program


An after school art program began this year as a follow up to the successful program running at St. Edward's Elementary in 2008-2010. The class was created and facilitated by local artist Christopher. Chris’s program began with 25 students from Grade 4 through to 6 for 10 one-hour sessions. Mr. Newhook has now offered this class to St. Anne's Academy and presently he will offer a similar course to approximately 60 students from Grades 4 - 6.
 
 

These art classes are developed to enhance the student’s knowledge and appreciation of various artist work and from these new learnt skills and techniques the boys and girls will create their own art. The classes are very effective in demonstrating numerous skills and various mediums for student use with occasional exposure to a bit of art history. The classes help create a school environment where the visual arts now flourishes. Immediately after each class the student’s art gets displayed on the corridors throughout the school. Their presentations bring delight and many positive comments from students, staff, the general school community and visitors to the school. All are impressed by the student’s quality of work. These visual art displays help to expand the fabric of the school culture.
 

"What is most valuable about this program as the level of enthusiasm shown by the students", said Vice Principal Mr. Critch. "The children did not want to miss class, therefore attendance was exceptional. While observing many of these sessions it was easy to see the pride and satisfaction each child put into every piece of work completed."
   
An integral part of this program, not only for the students, but for the school itself, will again be the exhibit of all the students work at the new Placentia Bay Arts Centre come spring. Details to follow.
 
 
 
 

 




In this project the Grade 6 students were introduced to layering and shading. Referring to the recent work study of the famous Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, students were asked to think about how emotions and feelings are rendered using only straight lines and simple colours. They were encouraged to break up the space of the page any way they chose with solid, bright lines, paying attending also to the negative space left behind. First lines were placed and coloured with pastel with students making all their own decisions. Then black and white chalk was applied overtop to tint the colours and render the illusion of tonal shading converting the solid bars into 3 dimensional tubes.


 
 
 
 
 
 

In this exercise the Grade 6 art class were given mystery objects hidden inside paper bags. They were instructed to insert their non-drawing hand into the bag, seal it with tape and proceed to render the item inside without actually seeing it. This exercise proved exciting and powerful as it showed the class that one does not only draw with the eyes but with all senses available at the moment. In this case, students used touch as their main source of information and then rendered the hidden object with pencil and paper, usually as a contour drawing, before removing it from the bag. The surprise in their drawings was not only how accurate they were but that sometimes they focused on what would normally be secondary or non-important information about the object, such as its texture, whether it had moving parts, roughness or edging, rather than the obvious choices of colour and contrast.
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 
 

The Grade 6 art class was shown how to render a degradation for their backgrounds (a transition from one colour to another). They were instructed in two ways to create their background; a wet-on-wet approach or a straight dry paper effect. They were then asked to choose two colours to create their wash (sunset colours), and blend each together to form a warm background mood. Once complete the work was left flat to dry.
   

During the next class, they taped their work back down on the boards. A long bead of black India ink was then applied with an eye dropper across the bottom edge. Students were then given a straw and used it to blow the ink towards the top of the sky to create the black, leafless trees.
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In our Grade 6 class, we reviewed the many paintings of Russian artist Mr. Marc Chagall’s and discussed his method and style. Each student then took it upon themselves to do their own version and referenced our topic based on the outside school yard – in particular, the new playground – and how it affected each student. They were encouraged to interpret and transfer the space outside to their paper with large motif-style images. As with Chagall, scale and horizons were skewed. Students were asked to rotate their boards and draw not only what they remembered with the physical structures but also create images of feelings and fun. Once the drawing were complete crayons were used to cover the outlines before bright, cheerful watercolours were applied.
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In this class Grade 6 art students were given directions on how to draw an underwater scene with whales, fish and other aquatic things of their choice. They were encouraged to fill the entire white board with simple outlined pencil items. Once the scene was complete and a background wave pattern was added, the lines were then covered over with white oil pastel.
 

Next diluted tempera paint was quickly brushed on in bold heavy colours. The paint did not adhere to the white pastel and before the paint had time to dry the entire piece was sprinkled with table salt. The salt absorbed some of the paint leaving a beautiful grainy, watery pattern.
   

Artwork was then left to dry flat and excess salt was brushed off before displaying.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 
 

The Grade 5 students were given this one hour project as a seasonal exercise as well as a way to introduce them to mixing colours. Using just blue and yellow paint on their pallettes, the class not only made green, but were required to make three different shades of green for a simple but colourful abstract landscape.
 

To begin the drawing, they were to sketch at least three triangles trees, with simple trunks, and a wavy ground line. Trees were rendered from cardboard cut outs traced and overlapped (the layering of trees also showed them one of the simple tricks of perspective drawing). Then they outlined their trees and their trunks with black crayons.
 

A mid sky blue was made by mixing the white and blue on their trays. After this was applied to the sky they moved on to the trees.
   

Next, the fun part, making green. Once the students figured out that the blue + yellow made a pretty turquoise green, some realized that yellow + the dark blue made a nice mossy green. From there, proportions of color could change, or white could be added to make a tint of a colour. I encouraged students to leave the ground white to appear as snow.
   

As a follow up, small white paper circles made with a hole punch were glued on top to make a sprinkle of snow.
 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 
 

Once again the Grade 5 class produced some stunning work. In this case the focus was to produce an outerspace scene. The first step in tackling this was creatingthe main objects (the spacecraft and planets). Following a step-by-step process, each student drew his or her version of a rocket at full scale on blank white paper. Planet sizes and shapes were also created using circle templates. Each was cut out, and taped to the large grey boards thereyby creating a “mask”.  

Focus was then on rendering the background. Using a mix of chalk pastels they were instructed to blend each together using either their hands or a large brush, paying particular attention to pushing the colours to and over the masks. Attention was given to building a wide yet gentle range of tones without it being too bold - to set it in the background. Finally, when the background was completed, the masks were removed to reveal the solid shapes of the rockets and planets. Referencing the original rocket drawing on the mask, bold colours were used with intent to bring the ship into the foreground. When the rocket was complete, the planet masks were then removed and colours applied to each sphere accordingly. Lastly, a white pastel was used to sprinkle the sky with stars.


 


 


 





Learning how to draw and colour well involves paying attention to detail, which is what this project focused on.

For each Grade 5 student I printed enlarged 4”X4” animal eye photos. They were cropped in a square with a simple grid overlaid. A variety of eyes from fish, tigers, reptiles and elephants were chosen so the students could pick the one that they found most appealing. Intense colour and detailed features were the best.  I then gave the students a large square blank white card and showed them how to properly tape it to working lap easels and asked them to lightly recreate the grid on it with a pencil and ruler. Having the work attached to a free moving easel allowed them to rotate their work for a more open and free approach to the subject.

Referencing the grid on each I demonstrated how the students could see where the lines intersected shapes in their small photos. If they drew the shapes in the same place on their blank paper, they were able to make a fairly accurate enlargement.

After the eye shapes were all drawn in pencil, I asked them to erase the grid and colour in the entire eye with the necessary colors using oil pastels. Particular attention was now given to replicating the odd shapes and colours, mixing the pastels on the board as they progressed, focusing their colouring on hair direction and scale patterns.

This project took approximately one and a half classes to complete.


 
 
 


 
 



 
 
 

 


During Lois Jones’s remarkable life, she painted, designed masks, textiles,stained glass windows and never stopped learning as she travelled the world. This was quite an artistic accomplishment during her lifetime as she was a woman, black, who struggled to live through both the second World War and the Great Depression.

Her “Les Fetiches” art has an African style that is fun to imitate so at the beginning of the class we watched a video and had a brief discussion about her and portrait drawing, especially the positioning of eyes and nose on the face. We started the project with a black sheet of paper on which the students were asked to draw a large oval that filled the paper. A horizontal line cut the oval in half where small lemon-shape eyes were drawn in the middle of the face, along with one for the mouth.

The students placed a dot that was centered between the eyes, and then drew shapes that went around the eyes, and touched the outside edge of the face – the goal was to make lots of closed shapes. The same shape was drawn around the mouth. Students drew a central vertical line and sketched a simple nose that touched the centre of the eyes and top of the mouth. Two eyebrow-like curves were added to the forehead. With the lines complete, all of the closed shapes on the face were completely filled in with their choice of two colored pencils. Then a white chalk pastel was used to go over selected corners to brighten (or tint) them, and black chalk was used for opposite corners to darken (or shade) them. For the dramatic final touch the whole piece was outlined with white oil pastel.

The outcomes of this one class project were many: the Grade 5s were asked to understand proportions and facial positioning (eyes and mouth), create shapes, tints, and colour shading with the final piece rendering an overall sense of volume.







 



One of the goals of this project was to show the Grade 4 students some easy techniques in creating fun textures in their paintings.


To begin, the watercolour paper was taped down with the four edges being covered (this later created a white border). Then a cardboard template was passed around for them to trace. It looked like the body of a frog with the hands and feet missing. Once the frogs were drawn around the watercolour paper (some positioned half off the page), the boys and girls completed the hands and feet and then retraced all the edges with a white oil pastel. This template sped up the layout greatly which allowed the class to focus on overlapping and other details. The white outlining created an oil barrier which prevented any green colour from “bleeding” out into the background when the students painted the bodies. Once the bodies were filled in, it was partially blotted with paper towel before drying to create the spotted effect.


Next came the water background. A medium blue was mixed and significantly thinned down on their paint trays with water. As the blue was liberally applied another cool effect was created by sprinkling salt on the wet paint. As the background dried the salt soaked up some of the pigment creating a speckled effect. The project was left to dry.


Next class the students brushed off the dried salt and outlined the frogs with a black oil pastel to define them. Then a violet and white pastel was added to to the bodies to create shadow and highlights. The taped edging was peeled off, artwork was then signed and ready to hang.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



 
   

Here’s a fantastic project that met a number of basic art outcomes in just one lesson. 

Firstly, we tackled the drawing of a full scale fish which taught the students scale, 

proportions and volume. Using a step-by-step method, the Grade 4 class were asked to render an accurate outline of a codfish with a simple background. When the drawing was finished the pencil lines were then covered with white glue and left to dry until the following class.

Then, at the beginning of the next class, we first took some time to discuss another outcome – the overview of colour itself. We talked about primary, secondary, 

complementary and warm/cool colour combinations. We discussed how some colours seem to recede while others advance, how some colours were pleasing next to some and not so against others. Afterwards, students had the opportunity to study full colour spectrums in nature with the aid of small prisms and sunshine. They played with the glass shapes and sun on their desks creating mini rainbows. Following this they were asked to design their own colour wheels, keeping in mind what colours they would eventually choose for their fish drawing. Using their own wheels they could then see how colours match up to each other. 

Finally, in the process of choosing colours for their fish, emphasis was put on using cool colours for the background as well as complimentary warm colours for their the subject, the codfish. When the artwork was complete, they signed it for display.



 



 


In this final art class for the Grade 4 students we used a heavy stock drawing board and, placing it in an vertical format, drew the outline of a tree trunk with a few foot shapes pointing down (representing roots). After adding two vertical lines to define the tree, we made a series of horizontal curved lines going across and filling up the entire trunk.

Next we drew a curvy horizontal line across the sky, and then filled in the ground below with more horizontal wavy lines that jumped across the tree roots. When the pencil drawing was complete, we traced all the lines with a thin black marker.

The class was then asked to choose random brown colours from their crayon collection for the trunk, green for the ground and blue for the sky. They were instructed in creating varying tones by adjusting pressure when colouring, filling in the spaces with darker and lighter versions of each colour.

The outcomes of this project were many. Though the class was asked to create a tree trunk they each had creative expression as to how it was shaped and the quality of lines and colours. Finally, by using basic contour lines the illusion of space and volume was created - an easy but effective trick of the eye.
 
 


 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

C.