By Asya
This year we began a new partnership with PS 33! We are working with two pre-K classes in a twenty-session Thinking Through Art residency. Throughout the residency, we are exploring Himalayan art, learning important art vocabulary, and developing art-making skills.
We began the residency by looking at the geographic area of the Himalayan Mountains. Looking at tall peaks, snow, and the climate, we made our own mountain ranges using tape and crumpled paper. We realized how much fun it is to crumple paper and tear and use as much colored tape as we want!
One of our favorite days was learning about yaks and making our own yak puppets. We began talking about texture by feeling yak wool and yarn. We even learned all about felting and made our own felt shapes and designs.
We learned all about the Mandala, a circular symbol found in Himalayan art. In creating our very own Mandalas we looked at lines, shapes, patterns and colors. We loved using different various materials and art making techniques and expressing ourselves creatively.
First we created the outlines using lines. We noticed square, circular and triangle shapes. Just like Buddhist monks making a sand mandala, we spent a lot of time carefully filling in each section with different colors made from small pieces of papers. Finally we adorned the border of our project with patterns using stamps and paint.
We are so proud of our hard work and patience. We displayed our work, just like at the Rubin Museum, in a beautiful gallery outside the classroom for all to enjoy.
We are now working on a wonderful collaborative project inspired by the trees in the Bodies in Balance exhibition. We love learning about health and what makes us feel good. Our final project will contain portraits of each person in our class showing what is unique about each of us! Here is a preview of our portraits.
