Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 – Plog Photo Blog

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943 – Plog Photo Blog

These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.

Kindergarten Snowflakes

Kindergarten artists read the book "Snowflake Bentley". We learned about the life of photographer Wilson Bentley. According to his website (www.snowflakebentley.com) many of us can remember hearing the phrase "no two snowflakes are alike". This discovery was made in the small rural town of Jericho, Vermont by Wilson A. Bentley (1865-1931).
A self educated farmer, Bentley attracted world attention with his pioneering work in the area of photomicrography, most notably his extensive work with snow crystals (commonly known as snowflakes). By adapting a microscope to a bellows camera, and years of trial and error, he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885.

Kindergartners learned to fold square paper twice to make a small triangle. We drew small, simple shapes on our triangles and cut these shapes out. We then carefully unfolded our creations to see what we made!

4th Grade Relief Scupltures

Fourth Grade artists looked at the artwork of renowned sculptor Louise Nevelson. Nevelson was a Russian immigrant. Her father was a wood worker and because of this Louise began using his scrap wood to build assemblages out of these found objects. Her sculptures typically featured hand-built wooden boxes filled abstractly with pieces of wood. Her sculptures were also painted one color, usually a neutral color. She did this because her artwork was about shapes (2-D) and forms (3-D)--it was not about color. 4th graders built a box out of scrap mat board. We used scrap wood and found objects sent over from the middle schools to build our abstract sculptures. Mr. K spray painted all 80-something boxes black and students were able to choose one metallic paint to give their work just a touch of color using sponge brushes. Every 4th grader has a sculpture hanging outside the art room creating one large relief sculpture.

3rd Grade Illuminated Letters

3rd grade artists created their own Illuminated Letters. We looked at the Book of Kells and discussed how "illuminated" means filled with light. The original illuminated letters used gold leafing in the illustrations, so as the pages were turned the letters reflected light and appeared to be glowing. These manuscripts (manu meaning 'by hand' and script meaning 'writing') were made by many people. A parchmenter made the paper out of leather, a scribe wrote every word by hand, an illustrator created the drawings and a book binder sewed all the pages together. Only people with great wealth and power had books. Illuminated Manuscripts had fanciful artwork that matched the story in the text. We chose one letter, created a pattern around the border and filled our drawings with images that matched our personalities. These were created with markers and watercolor paints.

2nd Grade Penguins

Second grade artists read two non-fiction books and learned about penguins. We learned why they have white bellies and black backs. Ask your student! We learned about how they feed their chicks and the habitat they live in. We watched some National Geographic videos about Penguins on youtube. We then drew penguins (some drew emperors; some macaroni) and drew their habitat as we reviewed what a horizon line does in a drawing and the parts of a drawing--the foreground, middle ground and background. After outlining in sharpie, we use water-based markers to color our sky with warm colors and cool colors for our water. Then we used wet paint brushes to blend the colors of the sky and water together.

First Grade Snow Flakes

First grade artists learned about Andy Warhol and "Pop Art". We learned that Warhol was an artist who made prints of popular things (thus the term "Pop Art"). He used repepition in his artwork, often repeating the same image. But he also used variation by changing the colors of the image. Inspired by his images of Mickey Mouse and Marilyn Monroe, we talked about what is currently popular. If Warhol were alive today, who do you think he what put in his artwork? Students had great responses like Elmo and Lady Gaga. We used colored construction paper and learned how to fold and cut geometric and organic colored snow flakes.

1st Grade Lanterns

First grade artists learned about the upcoming Chinese New Year. We talked about the history of the Chinese New Year and how the twelve animals of the Zodiac were chosen. We talked about red being a lucky color and we talked about 2012 being the year of the dragon. We drew dragons and chinese characters on colored construction paper and turned our drawings into lanterns. The Lantern Festival or Yuanxiao Jie as a traditional Chinese festival, which is on the 15th of the first month of the Chinese New Year.
We watched two really cool video clips on youtube.

Chinese Lantern Festival

Dancing Chinese Lion