School promotes art study
BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer

Manalapan

MANALAPAN — The ninth annual student art show at the Chesterbrook Academy, Woodward Road, has proven to be another success for the private school.

The May 26 event highlighted students’ creativity, learning and appreciation for art and art history.

“This year we decided to return to basics, the principles and elements of design,” art teacher Julie Pasquale said.

Kindergarten pupils learned about mixing colors by using primary and secondary colors, Pasquale said. Advanced kindergarten children delved into art history and examined the art of ancient Greece and Rome. The children worked with mosaics and metal plate rubbing.

First-graders combined reading and art as they illustrated stories about astronauts and outer space. They also made symmetrical cutouts.

Second- and third-graders learned about and created African masks and tropical birds.

“We went into the folklore of Africa and read a lot of stories,” Pasquale said. “Then we decided to create a jungle with birds, lots of birds, all over.”

Art students in grades four through eight were able to create a masterpiece collage. The students pick an artist and write about that person. Then they make a collage of the artist’s work.

Fourth-graders did positive and negative repetitions, creating a simple design and repeating the grid, three times, by tracing. They then used two or three colors to fill the drawings and then reversed the colors in the next box.

They also traveled back in time to create landscapes using perspective techniques, as they drew their castles, knights, princesses and dragons.

Seventh- and eighth-graders became involved with graffiti art.

“We made a brick wall and then they did their names in graffiti,” Pasquale said. “They learned about the City Without Walls gallery in Newark. Then they created graffiti the modern way. We then went back to ancient Egypt and the children were able to write their names in hieroglyphics.”

Other projects throughout the year included Tessellation designs, which are congruent polygons that fit together like jigsaw puzzles and repeat themselves; and Tissue Paper Vases using water color on tissue paper, which are then cut and applied to form a vase with flowers.

Highlighting the year was an Artist in Residency Workshop sponsored by the Chesterbrook Academy Parents Association. Sculptor Triada Samaras and teaching artists from Young Audiences introduced students to creating wood sculptures. Students also learned about other sculptors.