Drawing Together Spring 2012

This spring, Kentler is hosting our free, family Drawing Together programs on the first and third Saturdays of each month. These programs are now a part of our Brooklyn Community Foundation Challenge Grant and we are so thrilled about the response we've gotten so far. This year, over 60 children and caregivers from all over Brooklyn have shown up to make collaborative art projects based on Kentler's current show, The Influential Female: Drawings Inspired by Women in History. Teaching artists Meghan Keane and Ruth Wetzel have been taking turns leading these workshops and both have come up with some really exciting, hands-on activities.

On February 18th, Ruth had the group create bodily adornments inspired by the drawings of Anyssa Ng. Participants used poster board, ribbons, tape, glitter, rhinestones, and other materials to create unique, wearable art objects. Children (and parents!) crafted functional crowns, belts, shoes, sashes, and jewelry of their own design. Once finished, they marched around the gallery in a sparkly, colorful procession! Here are some photos of their creations:

Last Saturday, Meghan created an interesting project based on the qualities of hair--as a tool for mark-making and as a symbol of female identity. This project stems from the drawings of artist Jono Vaughan as well as Meghan's own hair-inspired artwork. She gathered up hair extensions in different textures and colors for participants to "draw" with, yielding some fun results! Parents and children were open to the experience as a new way to construct formal qualities of line, dimension and color. Their compositions were large, abstract and quite lively:

The next Drawing Together workshop will be held on Saturday, March 17th (St. Patrick's Day). If you and your family are interested in attending, please contact Sallie@kentlergallery.org with your name, child's name/age, and contact information to reserve your spot in advance.
We hope to see you soon!

School Programs Spring 2012

We are four weeks into our 2012 school programming here at K.I.D.S. Art Ed.! We’re so excited to be working with Kindergarten - 5^th grade at P.S. 15 and Brooklyn New School again this year, and have been getting excellent feedback from our teachers and students so far.

Our workshop this spring is based on Kentler’s current exhibition, The Influential Female: Drawings Inspired by Women in History. The group show, which focuses on issues of female identity and strength, has been a rich source of inspiration for the students. More information about this beautiful show can be found at Kentler’s website, www.kentlergallery.org.

Each gallery visit begins with a general class intro, after which the group is broken up into two sections. One half of the class is sent to the front gallery, where students practice observational drawing with teaching artist Lance Paladino. The figural drawings of Clarity Haynes and Viviane Silvera serve as models for the students to explore shape, tone, and detail using ebony pencils and kneaded erasers. Each student chooses a drawing to work from and is given the opportunity to share his or her drawings with the group:

In the back gallery space, teaching artist Meghan Keane provides students with a pile of writing utensils, office supplies, ribbon and other materials for a more free-form drawing exercise. Students are prompted to think of an event or accomplishment that they are proud of and are then asked to recreate that event using the various supplies in front of them. Taking cues from the colorful drawings and hanging installations on view, some students decide to make flat pictures on the floor while others use a more sculptural, three-dimensional approach. The wide range of creativity among different grade levels and within single classes is amazing! Here are some examples of what students have come up with:

After each half of the workshop, the students switch rooms. This gives them a complete 90-minute experience with exposure to both formal and exploratory drawing methods. At the end of the visit, an enthusiastic wrap-up session catalogs what students saw, learned, and created and generates ideas for future drawings.

We still have two weeks of gallery visits left before we start with post visits, where the teaching artists will follow up with their lessons in the classroom. The unfinished drawings from Lance’s segment and photos of the students’ “temporary” constructions are given back to them as starting points for a final project. At the end of the post visit, students’ finished work is hung in the hallways of their school.

Stay tuned for updates on future programs. Thanks for stopping in on the K.I.D.S. Art Ed. blog!