March School Programs : with Beverly Ress

Our March school programs not only look at Moseni's work but also at the works on paper by artist Beverly Ress.
In the front part of the gallery, students have been looking at Ress' large drawings on canvas-backed paper. They have noticed that she is drawing from nature (trees, birds, grasses) and makes cuts in the paper in very linear, almost mechanical ways. One portion in particular of these 2-d to 3-d reconstructions is especially compelling and reminded students of a nest, a t-rex head, and a skull; another work's cut outs reminded students of a visual map of dance steps. Ress's process of cutting into her drawings and then constructing new forms with the paper is key to our central theme, "how does a drawing grow?"

Ruth's still lives

To help the students understand and appreciate Ress's attention to detail, teaching artist Ruth Wetzel constructed a variety of carefully arranged still-lifes using objects from nature she collected. With the still life of their choice students were first encouraged to look closely before drawing anything.  Then they were encouraged to draw either parts of the still life or the whole thing, to start with large shapes and then work to the smaller ones, to notice the ways the shapes related to other shapes and even to notice shadows.  Drawing with colored pencil, students noticed that there are shapes in flowers that are "roundish," that an ostrich egg has a "bumpy" texture and that one of the branches looks like a "perfect rainbow arch." 

Fifth graders from Brooklyn New School

Kindergartners from PS 676

Back in the classroom students continued to explore the question, "how can a drawing grow?"  Kentler's teaching artists provided new the students with new materials that inspired students to build.  Going from 2-d to 3-d, just like Ress's drawing, the students' work grew and grew...

Installation at PS 15

Drawing Together Family Workshop (11/13)

Inspired by the characters in the Kentler's CUBA: MY REVOLUTION exhibition, families worked together to create their own character drawings.



Using cut and torn pieces of thin cardboard, kids and parents designed the portrait of their imaginary character. After designing, they glued the cardboard down to their large piece of posterboard. This not only made a unique drawing, but created the perfect low-relief surface for a rubbing! This technique of "drawing with cardboard," or other papers or fibers, is called "collagraph" meaning glued, or collaged, print [colle = glue in French].

Next, families used paper with winter designs on it to create a rubbing with dark cray-pas. We were all excited to work at such a large scale and to see the differences between the two characters! Everyone got to leave with not just one giant drawing, but two! And students can make more rubbings of their drawings for their friends after -- or are well-poised to explore other collagraph ideas!


This DT Workshop was led by Kentler K.I.D.S. teaching artist, Meghan Keane.






View all photos from this Drawing Together workshop here

We look forward to seeing you at the December 18 DRAWING TOGETHER workshop, led by teaching artist Ruth Wetzel.

Email K.I.D.S. Director, Mollie McQuarrie, to reserve a place for you and your child: omcquarrieo@gmail.com
Spaces are limited so reservations are suggested.

Rubbings and Giant Pencils-Wall Drawings and Sounds: K.I.D.S. Fall Program Highlights!

This fall, Kentler educators worked with local k-5th grade students from P.S. 15 and Brooklyn New School (P.S. 146) to explore the collaborative sound/wall drawing installation by artists Lezli Rubin Kunda and Ellen Moffat.

 In the "big room," teaching artist Meghan Keane led students in experiments with how sound can inspire different types of lines: jagged, scribbly, curvy, broken, straight...the list was endless! Students created "line libraries" to record their experiments.

They also experimented with new ways to create lines (with tape, giant drawing implements, and by erasing)...

 

...and by drawing directly on the gallery wall (!). 

Each of our 14 classes added to the wall drawing. After the first couple of classes it looked like this:

After the last couple of classes it looked like this:

How cool is that??

In the "small room" teaching artist Lance Paladino and Mollie McQuarrie explored Lezli's installation where she rubbed graphite into the wall exposing and responding to imperfections in the wall's surface.

Similarly, students worked to "discover" shapes and textures hidden under fabric by rubbing with crayon and oil pastel.

Finally switching to graphite and compressed charcoal the empty areas ("negative spaces") were filled in or outlined.  These black materials made the colors in the positive spaces "pop out."

These awesome murals each represent the collective creativity of half of each class that came to Kentler.  Its been suggested that we use these to raise some money for K.I.D.S. Art Education.  We are currently working on that.  If you're interested, please contact me: we have 26 and they all need homes!! Place a bid!

Wow team Kentler!  Thanks to Meghan and Lance for all their input and effort!  And thanks to teachers and students for all their cooperation and creativity.

Stay tuned for news about the follow up post visit.

School Programs: Fall 2012

Fall 2012 school programs are underway and we are excited to be working with BNS and P.S. 15 again! This season, students are looking at work by 8 artists in a group show titled, To Be Young, Gifted and Black in the Age of Obama. The exhibition has inspired some very strong artwork as well as interesting dialogue on the connections between race, creativity and expression. You can find out more about this show at Kentler's website: http://www.kentlergallery.org/pages/current.html

During their gallery visit, students participate in two types of drawing: from observation and from imagination.  Meghan Keane's workshop looks at the work of Duron Jackson. Here are some of their observational drawings based on his graphite pieces:

In the back room, Ruth Wetzel introduces students to themes of pride, protest, and achievement in the exhibition. She asks them to remember a time in their lives that they stood up for something or helped someone. The materials and techniques they use to tell their stories are based on the ball-point pen drawings of Jamea Richmond-Edwards. Here they are hard at work:

So far we are thrilled with the response we have gotten from our perceptive students. We're looking forward to seeing how their work evolves during the post visits. Look out for more updates on the Fall 2012 gallery visits and full coverage of the upcoming post visits as well!

Drawing Together: Fall 2012

This past Saturday, K.I.D.S. Art Education collaborated with Open House New York and the P.S. 15 Fall Flea to offer TWO very special "Drawing Together" programs!

In the morning, Meghan Keane led kids and adults on a journey down Van Brunt Street to discover architectural elements, landscapes, and other neighborhood sights. With Meghan's help, everyone made their own sketchbooks and filled the pages with their observations. Some had themes in mind, some just drew whatever caught their eye! This video showcases their drawings as well as their amazing book-making skills:

Later in the afternoon, we moved over to the P.S. 15 Fall Flea and set up a "design your own city" workshop complete with markers, tape, stickers, paper clips and other 3D materials. Several families dropped in to create imaginary streets, skylines and parks. Have a look at what they came up with:

This fall we are holding "Drawing Together" workshops on the first and third Saturdays of each month. Our workshops are geared towards children ages 4 and up and their caregivers. If you'd like to join us or want any more information, feel free to leave a post or contact me at sallie@kentlergallery.org. Thanks for reading and be sure to look out for more posts as fall K.I.D.S. Art Ed. 2012 continues!

Drawing Together at Red Hook Flea!!

K.I.D.S. Art Education kicked off our 2011-12 season with a Drawing Together program at Red Hook Flea- a fundraiser for P.S. 15, our neighbor and partnering school.  Teaching artist Meghan Keane invited participants to "Draw big. Draw Colorful." 

Using handmade stencils designed by Meghan and using all recycled materials, children and their care givers worked together to explore colors, shapes, and textures.  Surrounding the students there was music, dancing, food, crafts and dreamy ephemera as folks from the neighborhood sold their wares in a wonderful collaborative fundraising effort.

Thank you P.S. 15. Thank you participants.  Thank you Red Hook for your vitality, creativity and community spirit.

Next up?  Thoughts and images from our fall program built on our exhibition "MARKING SPACE.A collaborative drawing, performance and sound project." by visual artist Lezli Rubin-Kunda and sound artist Ellen Moffat.

March School Programs : with Arezoo Moseni

K.I.D.S. Art Ed has welcomed local Red Hook students from P.S. 15, P.S. 676, and BNS to the gallery this month.
We have been looking at work by artists Beverly Ress and Arezoo Moseni. The question that we're focusing on this session is: How can a drawing grow? Using each artist's work as a starting point, students have begun exploring different ways drawings can grow (or expand) and different ways to make a drawing.

This blog post will highlight the activity we do with Arezoo Moseni's work. Our next blog post will feature the activity we are doing with Beverly Ress' work.

Led by teaching artist Meghan Keane, students first spend time looking at one of Moseni's works on paper in which indigo, the dye used to color jeans, is her medium. 

Changes #24. Moseni

Students noticed she uses lots of different colored blues and purples, that there are many triangles and diamond-like shapes that come in a variety of sizes, and many students notice that it looks like a portal or a worm hole or something caving in toward the center. It has alternately reminded students of a star, a crystal, water, and...a mountain (because of the layered curves)!

After spending some time discussing the work students worked individually with laminated triangles, of many different colors and sizes, to create a drawing on the floor.  Students were asked to imagine that the large brown floor was their "piece of paper" and the colorful triangles were their "crayons," their drawing material.

Students explored what happens when you place ONLY the sides together 

and then ONLY the points:

create a HOLE in the middle of your drawing, 

or what happens when you work with a partner to create a drawing of something they can find in the city.

These are some of the images of what we've come up with!

Our next post will feature student work from their explorations with the work of Beverly Ress. 

Stay tuned!