Courses Help Shape Young Artists’ Work

By Tanjua Damon

Have you ever been given a word and asked to turn it into a piece of art?

Middle and high school students have used various vocabulary words like order, chaos, symmetry, and congested, all of which were turned into pieces of art expressing the words.

The class, Art Journals, is part of the Smart Too courses offered by the Newtown Continuing Education Department for the first time this summer. Students participated in a two-week session where they received instruction on three different art mediums during the session. The Drawing Process and Watercolors, as well as Pottery and the Temperatures of Color, were the courses offered to students.

Artist Dennis Best taught The Drawing Process and Temperatures of Color. The Drawing Process course allowed students the information to better understand how to begin drawing so that the whole piece of work turned out to favor the artist’s eye.

“This group has really embraced this class to the fullest,” Mr Best said. “They’ve really taken hold of the subjective ideas and worked it into their art.”

The group of young artists began by working with shapes that they all know, like circles, squares, and rectangles, which help build a road map to get to the realism, according to Mr Best.

“Everyone is happy with one part of their drawing usually,” he said. “The drawing is ruined because they didn’t plan it from the start.”

John Ciaccio felt the class would be fun and a good way to spend time with friends who also signed up for it.

“I learned how to do different shapes and different ways to do things,” John said. “He has shown us different ways to do things and I have improved.”

Kelly McPhee decided to sign up to improve her art and see what else she could do.

“I’m a really bad drawer and I wanted to improve,” she said. “I see that I had a lot more things I could do. I want to be a good drawer.”

Artist Jon Miller worked with students in the medium of watercolors and an art journal class.

Students explored with flat washes, dry brush, and wet on wet techniques through photos, still life, and their own imaginations.

“I teach them how to work and also technique aspects of watercolors,” Mr Miller said. “They are getting an understanding of how watercolors work. It’s a transparent medium that needs to be put on thinly. It’s fairly abstract. I tell them to experiment.”

Allie Hornak had never really used watercolors before and wanted to see how the art medium worked.

“I basically had never done it before and want to learn how to do it,” she said. “It’s hard, but it’s fun.”

Maggie Boushell said she too enjoyed the experience.

“I wanted to learn more about the medium because I am interested in painting,” Maggie said. “It’s a good experience. The limited control you have over it – the water and the running.”

Caitlin Dalton finds watercolors challenging because there are so many things to consider, like where the light is hitting, keeping the paint color the same, and understanding how to apply water.

“I never really worked with watercolors before and think it’s an interesting medium,” Caitlin said. “Trying to get the colors to match just right.”

Art Journals is a class where students are given problems to figure out: creating a cover using their name and things that define them; using a word and making it into art; or drawing an insect and then taking pieces of it and making them the focal point so it is hard to figure out what it is.

“It’s all different problems put together,” Mr Miller said. “All these things are exercises in how you are supposed to think creatively in a visual context.”

Many of the exercises come from teachers from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, according to Mr Miller. They allow students to create art that is expressive.

“You get to work with a lot of different media and try many things,” Allie said. “It’s not really directed. You have a lot of freedom and I like that.”

John realizes that the Art Journal class is hard for him because there is not a direct focus; instead the artist has to build the focus using his own imagination.

“It’s hard. Some of the projects are hard to do. Some of the things I don’t like so I don’t put as much work into it. That’s not so good,” he said. “You can express yourself in different ways.”

Bethany Murphy likes the class because it allows her to express herself through various techniques.

“You get to express your drawing skills to other people and you can improve your drawing,” Bethany said. “There are lots of things I haven’t done before. I mostly draw people, but this makes me draw animals and other things.”

Smart Too is in its first year through the Newtown Continuing Education Department’s summer programs. For more information call 426-1787.