George Rodrigue

On Tuesday April 15, 2014 Ms. Optie's kindergarten class received an art talk about recently deceased American artist George Rodrigue.  Students read the story "Why is Blue Dog Blue?", discussed the artist background, themes, and techniques and utilized the free Blue Dog app on their ipads.  Afterward each child created their own version of Blue Dog.

The following excerpt taken directly from the George Rodrigue Foundation website.

George Rodrigue (March 13, 1944 – December 14, 2013) was born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana, the heart of Cajun country. Even today his work remains rooted in the familiar milieu of home. Bed-ridden with polio, young Rodrigue discovered his love of art at age eight, when his mother gave him his first paint by number set to relieve his boredom that summer.

Later Rodrigue studied art at the University of Southwest Louisiana in Lafayette, followed by the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where the graduate school's curriculum provided him a nuts-and-bolts foundation in drawing and painting.

He then returned to Louisiana and developed his unique style, using the area's visual symbols not only to capture the essence of his personal world, but also to express his spiritual and cultural ideas as they pertained to Louisiana, to the South, and to America.

Using the oak tree as his subject in hundreds of paintings in the early 1970s, Rodrigue eventually expanded his oeuvre to include the Cajun people and traditions, as well as his interpretations of myths such as Jolie Blonde and Evangeline. It was one of these myths, the loup-garou, which inspired Rodrigue's most famous series, the Blue Dog.

As a boy, Rodrigue knew of a werewolf or ghost dog that lurked in sugar cane fields, threatening to haunt bad children. The legend said nothing about the loup-garou's color, but Rodrigue thought the night sky would cast a blue-grey shade on its fur. Over time the image on his canvas became friendlier, with a brighter hue and increasingly abstract settings. No longer the loup-garou, the Blue Dog, as well as other series such as Bodies, Hurricanes, and Reflections continue to challenge Rodrigue artistically. For more information about George Rodrigue visit www.georgerodrigue.com. 

Blue Dog Activity Sheets created by George Rodrigue.

Surrealism with Joan Miro

3rd Graders at Emerson Elementary learned about the art of Joan Miro.  We started by looking at the painting Daybreak for 30 seconds in silence.

We asked students, "What did you notice at FIRST glance?  Where did your eyes go first?"  Answers and reasons varied.  Then we interrupted at 10 seconds into the 30:  "Did you notice something JUST NOW that you didn't see at first?"  We repeated at 20 seconds and then at the end of the 30 second look.  We talked about the importance of learning how to look at a painting, to let your eyes "take a walk" around the whole piece.  Think of what we would have missed if we had just quickly moved on to the talk!

The students viewed several Miro paintings and discussed the use of lines and shapes, color and space in each painting.  Students defined Surrealism and noted the difference between lines and shapes ("Shapes are lines that connect together to close!").  We noted how each student would "see" very different things in the paintings:  "I see a bird!" or "No, I see a tree." or "There is an eye".   Before starting our own Miro inspired drawings, we watched this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNHffh__mUY

And here are some shots of the process and finished products!:

Fall Art Installation @ the Back to School Picnic

The Art Talks* Planning Committee enjoyed hosting an art installation at the Back to School Picnic Friday 9/6/2013.  Many enthusiastic volunteers helped by dismantling the very weathered yarn flower fence, writing inspirational quotes and poems on leaves, laminating, and prepping supplies so that students could get one of their first tastes of art for the school year.  We will continue to add leaves to the fence over the next week.  Make sure to stop by for a bit of inspiration.   Thank you to everyone that made it such a success!   
We are planning seasonal changes to the fence throughout the year to correspond with art talks and/or school events.  

If you are interested in volunteering with the Art Talks committee (it's easy and fun) please contact Carrie Staubus (carriestaubus@earthlink.net) or Angela Bursua (bursua@gmail.com).

*Art Talks is a parent led art appreciation program designed to expose students to a variety of significant works of art through a series of classroom presentations.

Salvador Dali: The Lady Gaga of His Time?

5th graders at Emerson learned about the eccentric surrealist, Salvador Dali.  The Spanish painter once showed up to an art lecture wearing a full scuba suit carrying a pool cue.  Does that kind of crazy, exhibitionism and fashion forward wardrobe choice remind you of any famous artist in today's music scene??  Maybe Lady Gaga is a Dali fan?

Students viewed and discussed "Persistence of Memory", perhaps Dali's most famous and recognizable work.  We talked about the idea of "time melting away" and the way sometimes "time flies" and sometimes "the minutes drag on".  Students offered examples of places or activities in their lives that transcend time....When do you get lost in the moment?  How do you escape the pressures of deadlines and schedules?  Students noted that although the overall feeling of the painting is sad...the brightness in the background and the absence of clocks on the seaside mountain in the top right might symbolize such an escape from the daily schedule.  We watched this short video about Surrealism and what makes a painting surreal.

•Laws of nature are reversed (something alive becomes an inanimate object)

•Juxtaposition

•Transformation (turning something familiar into something unusual or disturbing)

•Dislocation (objects placed where they shouldn’t be)

•Metamorphosis (something changes)

•Symbols

Double image

Students were then asked to create a drawing given the theme of "time" and incorporate some element of surrealism.

This was the 5th graders last Art Talk of the year and the last at Emerson.  These students have been given Art Talks by Emerson parent volunteers since Kindergarten and had a chance to reflect on those works of art that most impressed them!  Students mentioned Sky Above Clouds by Georgia O'Keefe,  The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt, Love of Winter by George Bellows, and The Starry Night over the Rhone by Vincent Van Gogh in their discussion of past Art Talks.  Portrait of Sylvette David by Pablo Picasso, The Oregon Trail by Albert Beirstadt and Flowering Cherry with Poem Slips by Tosa Mitzucki are a few more of the wonderful works of art that these children were exposed to as a result of this valuable PTA program.  We wish them the best of luck in Middle School and beyond and hope that an appreciation of art and all things beautiful will follow them all their lives!  Congratulations Emerson 5th Graders!

Paul Klee - Portraits

Last Thursday students in Mrs. Kruger's 3rd grade class explored the artist Paul Klee and watched a BrainPop video about the role self-portraits play in art.

Paul Klee was a Swiss born painter, with a unique style that was influenced by expressionism, cubism, surrealism, and orientalism. His written collections of lectures, Writings on Form and Design Theory are considered as important to modern art as Leonardo da Vinci’s written works were to the Renaissance. As a child, Klee was mainly oriented as a musician, having played the violin since he was eight, but in his teen years, he found that art allowed him freedom to explore his style and express his radical ideas. Although Klee is now considered a master of color theory, he spent a long time in his search for his sense of color. At first, Klee drew in black and white, saying he would never be a painter. But as an adult, after a visit to Tunisia, in which he was impressed by the quality of light, he had found his sense of color and began experimenting with his newfound decision to be a painter. 

Students had a great time using watercolors, line drawings, and words to create abstracted self-portraits.

Jim Dine - Pop Art

Third grader's in Mrs. Kruger's class were given a special Valentine's Day (PTA sponsored) Art Talk on Pop Artist, Jim Dine.  Born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He is an American painter, graphic artist, sculptor, and poet who emerged during the Pop Art period as an innovative creator of works that combine the painted canvas with ordinary objects of daily life. His persistent themes included those of personal identity, memory, and the body. He is particularly associated with the bathrobe and the stylized heart.

The students used oil pastels on black construction paper to create art inspired by Jim Dine's prolific series of hearts.

A more detailed profile of Jim Dine's background and work can be found in this fantastic Scholastic Art News handout.  Jim Dine - Scholastic Art News 

Landscapes, Symbols and the Oregon Trail

5th grade students enjoyed an Art Talk that directly connected to their Social Studies Curriculum.  Mrs. Broshous is leading her students through a study of the Oregon Trail.  In an Art Talk last week, we talked about the paintings, "Oregon Trail" by Albert Bierstadt and "American Progress" by John Gast.

After learning the term, "Manifest destiny", and that many people at the time believed that it was America's destiny to settle the whole of the continent, students read editorials of the time describing the conditions of the trail and advising readers to either stay or go.  By a show of hands, it seems as though our 5th graders are adventurers at heart with most saying they would go!  This was not surprising given the beautiful scene in "Oregon Trail" by Albert Bierstadt.  Students noted the symbol of the sun and the use of light to portray a sense of hope in the new life that pioneers were pursuing.  In "American Progress" we find a sequential wave of transportation technology as well as development by settlers from East to West.  The idea of inevitability is clear!  And, of course, the angel-figure cannot be missed, leading the way with a book (symbol of education/enlightenment) and telegraph cable (symbol of technology and communication) that connects the east and the west.  This Art Talk also covered the terms foreground, mid ground and background when painting a landscape.  

Students could choose from a selection of projects to respond to the art.  Most chose to create their own landscapes depicting the idea of Manifest Destiny using light or symbols to portray optimism and inevitability.  Other ideas were to write their own editorials persuading readers to either go or stay, read real journal entries from pioneers traveling on the Oregon Trail and sketch or paint an image using the details, or create a work of art called, "Manifest Destiny" from the point of view of Native Americans.  

These 5th graders were very engaged in this Art Talk and exploring the idea of Manifest Destiny.  Their discussion of the paintings and the history they are learning about was a great opportunity to stretch their thinking and explore some big questions at a higher level of thinking.  What is their destiny?  How do we adapt to change?  How do we prepare for the future?  Does believing in that something is "destiny" help drive us to achieve?  Who benefited from "American Progress" and settling the whole of the continent?  Emerson's 5th graders are wonderful kids with a world of questions to explore!