January/February 2023 Art Blog

Kentfield Community Art Project: ‘All Our Hearts are In It'

Why?  The arts have power to connect us and make that connection visible.

When each member of our community contributes to a bigger project, our creative power is clear for all to see. Centering KSD in artistic expression invites us all to imagine a more vibrant, exciting time of learning/working and being together. 

The theme “All Our Hearts Are In It “serves as a prompt for the thoughts, ideas and process of the work.

Objective: To be emotionally and enthusiastically involved in creating something; to undertake something with passion and seal. Everyone's heart is essential and part of our community. Everyone who learns and works at KSD is invited to participate. 

Process

• The artwork will be composed of individual panels made by each person who works or learns in our schools

• These pieces will  later be assembled on columns for a roving display on our campuses

• Faculty and staff created their artworks during a special facilitated session by Barbara Libby and Elizabeth Rubenstein  in the course of August work week.

• Students, TK- 8 created their artworks during art classes and advisory

Assemblage and Presentation

• Art elective students in 7th & 8th grade are tasked with assembling the resulting works into column pieces, as well as designing column caps and supports

• This portable display will visit bot Bacich and Kent campuses for 2023 Open House events

• Column size: 48” high, 12” diameter, estimating a total of 27-29 columns 

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

TK/K: Color Theory 

TK and Kindergarten students completed their first color theory unit. We read the wonderful book titled “Mouse Paint” by Ellen Stoll Walsh and learned about primary colors. Students had the opportunity to use a variety of art media to mix secondary colors. For example using primary color crayola magic clay students mixed colors and shaped beads for a primary/secondary color necklace. 

Black History Month: Artist Alma Thomas

Students were introduced to the African-American artist and teacher Alma Thomas. Thomas became an important role model for women, African-Americans, and older artists. She was the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibition at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art, and she exhibited her paintings at the White House three times.

Students connected with Thomas’s luminous, abstract style. Students used their prior knowledge of primary and secondary colors and their skills of different kinds of mark making with a flat brush to create stunning, mosaic-like paintings. 

1st Grade: Exploration of Light

This 1st grade STEAM lesson focused on exploration of light. Students experimented with materials which allow light to pass through them, and with others that allow only some light through, and others that block all the light. Students explored that mirrors can be used to redirect a light beam. (Boundary: The idea that light travels from place to place is developed through experiences with light sources, mirrors, and shadows, but no attempt was made to discuss the speed of light).

Mirror Walk: Students used one small mirror held close to their faces below their eyes, to walk around the classroom. Students explored the world around them through the upside-down image reflection in the mirror. Students were guided in the exploration of how mirrors work. Students used artistic expressions to experiment with mirror reflection and duplication of their drawing and designs.

As a grand finale, students built, and created stunning kaleidoscopes, using simple materials such as: reflective mylar, tape, translucent tissue paper, and markers to design colorful patterns when looking through the kaleidoscope.

2nd Grade: Warm/Cool Color Dragons

Students were introduced to the color scheme warm and cool. With colors an artist can set a mood, attract attention, or make a statement. Color can be used to energize, or to calm down. By selecting a color scheme, artists can create an ambiance of elegance, warmth or tranquility, or convey an image of playful youthfulness. Color can be an artist's most powerful design element. 

Students learned to use colors consciously and harmoniously to paint a landscape backdrop for an imaginary dragon. Students sketched, cut and pasted imaginary dragons out of construction paper paper, representing either the warm or cool color family. With black pen and markers, details such as sharp teeth and claws, scales and spikes, horns and wings were added. 

3rd Grade: Lunar New Year Lion Dance Puppet

To mark Lunar New Year Bacich students enjoyed a variety of events and special projects based on traditions celebrated by people from and around Asia. In art class students created three dimensional Lion Dance Puppets. 

Lion dancing is a traditional dance usually performed for big celebrations like weddings, the opening of a store or a restaurant, or the new year. There are a few tales or stories on how lion dancing came to be and one of them is that long ago, there was a monster that attacked the village. Then a monk arrived at the village and tamed the monster by tying a ribbon around its horn. Another story starts out the same way with a monster attacking a village, so the villagers decide to make a lion costume with a mirror on it in hopes of scaring the monster away. Fortunately, the lion costume, along with a lot of noise from pots and pans scared the monster away and it never came back.

In Chinese culture, there are predominantly two kinds of lions. There is a northern costume and a southern costume. They both have mirrors that scare away the bad spirits because when the spirit looks at its own reflection, it’s scared away. Northern lions usually have long and shaggy orange and yellow hair with either a red bow, or a green bow on its head, depending on the gender of the lion (red for male, green for female). The southern mask and costume is a more stylized version of a lion, often with only two legs, and a drape over the back, in colors such as red, white, black and gray. In the United States the southern lions are predominantly used in celebratory dances and competitions. 

Students had the opportunity to either follow the northern or southern lion mask design, patterns, details and colors or follow their own artist interpretation. Once the lions were assembled students enjoyed performing collaborative dances with their lion puppets for their peers. 

4th Grade: Black History Month Collaborative Portraits 

African American Hero Collaborative Portrait; Visual Arts, Social Justice and History integration unit. Each 4th grade class studied an African-American hero: Ruby Bridges, Katherine G Johnson, John Lewis, Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes

In art class students were tasked to collaboratively portray the hero they studied. Students were introduced to the grid method to scale up and transfer a drawing. Students enjoyed this artistic challenge, figuring out how to draw their portion of the grid and matching their individual square to their classmates' pieces. Collaborative efforts on color schema and patterns resulted in stunning portraits.