Kindergarteners

Explore The Masters

By Laurie Borst

Wesley Learning Center’s kindergarteners recently wrapped up an extended unit on art and artists with a gala art show Friday, March 23.

Under the direction of teachers Randi Rote and Evelyn Sanford, the youngsters studied 27 artists spanning the Renaissance through the Modern Era. The students learned about the artists lives, where they came from, and their styles of work.

The students watched excerpts from videos and PBS shows on the different artists and saw copies of their artwork. After studying a particular artist, the youngsters each produced their own piece of art in that artist’s style.

From the Renaissance period, the students studied Michelangelo. Paintings of “people in the sky,” as one young artist described his work, inspired the children to create their own Sistine Chapel. To paint like this master, paper was taped to the bottom of tables. The students lay on the floor underneath and painted portraits.

The children painted a la Claude Monét, creating Impressionist watercolors. They painted portraits in the post-Impressionist style of Vincent van Gogh. The Blue, Rose and Cubist periods of Pablo Picasso were all explored.

The little artists created “stained glass” a la Chagall and tessellations a la Escher. Andy Warhol’s soup cans inspired the students’ own creations of favorite food packaging. They created Saturday Evening Post covers following the realistic, if not idealized, style of Norman Rockwell.

Salvador Dali, John Chamberlain, and Jackson Pollock excited the youngsters’ imaginations with their surrealism, junk sculpture, and spattered paint techniques.

Alexander Calder’s 1931 innovation of kinetic art, mobiles as they are known today, took the children into a different genre. Calder’s work led to the categorization of sculpture into stabile pieces that were stationary, and mobile pieces, which move freely.

The students studied Ansel Adams’ photography and took a turn behind the camera creating interesting nature shots. Other artists studied included Joan Miro, Jean Arp, and Paul Klee.

After finishing their studies of art and artists, the young artistes held a gala reception for family and friends. The walls, and ceiling, throughout the kindergarten halls and up the stairway were a collage of artistic groupings. Cookies decorated by the students and juice were provided also.