Cranbury School art classes teaching students fundamentals.
By: Josh Appelbaum
Cranbury School students in Tamara Woronczuk’s first-grade art classes constructed turkeys Nov. 2, gluing bright, patterned feathers on brown construction paper circles, liberally applying glue to backing paper and drawing background art with thin markers, and laughing as they positioned the bright orange turkey legs their teacher had cut out.
The students are becoming familiar with art materials and shapes that test perception and coordination. Ms. Woronczuk’s art curriculum focuses on giving students an informative overview of materials, techniques, artists and art movements in projects designed to develop their artistic talents.
From first-graders using patterns to make decorative turkeys, to eighth-graders creating plaster of Paris models and environments based upon the works of artist George Segal, all students are having fun, getting their hands dirty and taking home a monument to their own creativity.
Ms. Woronczuk, a Cranbury School art teacher, said art education has different objectives as students grow, and as such she targets different projects for specific objectives.
"In kindergarten through second grade, I try to build up a child’s confidence there’s no right or wrong answer and to get them familiar with art materials. In third, fourth and fifth grade, we build skills with painting, sewing and pottery techniques. And in the upper level, they use all of that and use their own creativity," Ms. Woronczuk said.
Ms. Woronczuk introduces her first-grade class to the construction of lines and shapes and the texture of different art materials. She said preparation for her lower grades classes is more extensive than the upper level, with lots of pattern making, pre-cutting and glue. Cutting out some plaid feather for a first grader, Ms. Woronczuk said the pattern created a different visual texture when glued to solid light blue construction paper.
Ms. Woronczuk said second-grade classes are introduced to drawing simple still life renderings of inanimate objects. Additionally, they learn about overlapping color, perspective, patterns and symmetry.
She said as students become more comfortable with the art materials and more confident with their skills, more complex compositions are tackled and explorations of different media and forms allow students to create their own style.
One exercise Ms. Woronczuk uses with her sixth-grade students that doesn’t allow a lot of interpretation is a project that has them copy an impressionist painting.
"It is the one time I ask them to copy a painting, but it goes to show students how to match the colors, get the atmosphere of the painting and some of the shading," Ms. Woronczuk said.
Eighth-grade classes complete approximately four projects throughout the school year including a warm-up exercise for each and delve deeper into modern artists and movements. Last week, students in Ms. Woronczuk’s class were doing symmetrical drawing and model-building projects.
In addition to the symmetrical drawings and the models, other projects include portraits based on New York artist Chuck Close’s work and a linear drawing project taken from Keith Haring’s famous subway art that used symbols to tell stories. The final lesson is a personal, interpretive project that asks students to create a portrait of themselves as a meal.
Eighth-grader Justin Trenkle was working on a small painting comprised of geometrical shapes that mirror each other, the inner shape contrasting with darker outlines. The pattern was carefully designed uniformly colorful. He was finishing the project, darkening some lines, brightening red trapezoids.
"It’s sort of symmetrical painting. We started it a couple of weeks ago, but I’m still a bit behind," Justin said.
Another symmetrical painting , done by Janelle VanSiclen, depicted four screaming heads with flames shooting over their tops. The artist calmly touched up her almost-finished painting, using muted colors on the skin tones and bright yellow for hair and tips of the flames. She said the idea, ironically, came from "the top of my head."
Most students were constructing the rough dimensions of human figures using plaster paper and wire hangers for a project on building models and environments.
The project uses various techniques to make the plaster statues, including plaster sculpture, garment design and context, requiring each student to create a realistic environment for their subjects.
Eighth-grader Felicity Moll was cutting a pattern for her statue’s pants, and explained the model-making process.
"You have to cut out strips of plaster, wet them and wrap them around a metal hanger, then cover it with masking tape," Felicity said.
Students shaped the plaster into muscles, tapered it toward the joints and trimmed masking tape to make feet and hands.
Ms. Woronczuk said the eighth-grade class is taking a queue from a deceased area artist for the recent project.
"We are working from sculptures made by George Segal, an artist who lived in South Brunswick he made life-sized plaster models and constructed environments around them we are working on a smaller scale," Ms. Woronczuk said
She said the project incorporates various art techniques, including modeling, painting, clothing making and the creation of an environment for each subject.
"After (the students) are finished with the modeling, they need to put them on a base. They use lots of the same techniques and materials like plaster of Paris, exactly what George Segal used to make his figures," Ms. Woronczuk said.
Mr. Segal, who died in 2000, incorporated real objects such as cars on stage-like sets to foreground statues. A few of Ms. Woronczuk’s students are taking the artist’s style and giving it another spin on "reality," creating models and environments for each of the "Fab Five" of television’s "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Consulting with one of the burgeoning artists, Ms. Woronczuk was met with a serious wardrobe issue.
"I’m looking for a cheetah pattern and I don’t think I have any. We might have to actually make it," Ms. Woronczuk said.