GOPA, CAHTS, and SOIT continue to content-integrate and innovate using STEAM!

Art teachers and their students in three Paterson, NJ public high schools, the School of Government and Public Administration/GOPA, the  School of Information Technology/SOIT, and the School of Culinary Arts,  Hospitality and Tourism/CAHTS continue to content-integrate and innovate using STEAM! As a result new, interdisciplinary art lessons are dominating these programs with support from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and WPU STEAM Art PIR Triada Samaras.  Three of these projects are featured below

In the School of Culinary Arts, Hospitality, and Tourism, Art Teacher Vivian Reyes developed a two-point perspective, still-life painting project with her STEAM students. This project combined math and art. Students were first asked to draw a still-life from observation, using two-point, linear perspective, a technique developed in the early Renaissance by Filippo Brunelleschi.


They learned: "The three components essential to the linear perspective system are orthogonals, the horizon line, and a vanishing point. So as to appear farther from the viewer, objects in the compositions are rendered increasingly smaller as they near the vanishing point. Early examples of Brunelleschi’s system can be seen in Donatello’s relief St. George Killing the Dragon (c. 1416–17)"


 











The next part of this lesson utilized knowledge from science, i.e. color theory. Students learned how colors are mixed using acrylic paint and an extender that keeps this fast-drying paint wet longer.  They also experimented with mixing a variety of color types including complementary colors, analogous colors, and tertiary colors.  Students learned how difficult it can be to create an excellent still life painting from visual observation.  But they were thrilled with their results!

In the School of Government and Public Administration, Art Teacher Darryl Jones created a human figure STEAM project that combined math and art. In the first part of this project, STEAM students learned to create a variety of geometric solids using plasticine clay. 
 
These forms included: the sphere, the cylinder, the rectangular prism, and the triangular prism. These are 3-D forms that students also encounter in their daily math classes, especially in geometry. Mr. Jones explained how often mathematics and the visual arts form intersections using examples from this link.  When students could execute these forms with confidence, Mr. Jones asked them to combine the forms to construct a human form and to give that human form an action. 

Students could choose any type of movement they wanted for their sculptures.  However, Mr. Jones stressed the need for them to all have actual, life-like proportions.  He explained how human proportions also relate to mathematics.   For example Leonard DaVinci studied these proportions in great detail and sketched them in his notebooks. (See his sketch of human proportions below.) 

Mr. Jones placed a photograph of a figure he created himself on the computer monitor as a prompt or inspiration for the students (see image below).

Students successfully created dynamic human form sculptures with their plasticine clay that withstood the ultimate physical test:  standing up, unassisted. They also photographed and drew these sculptures with pencil and paper, thus extending this art work into other media.
The resulting figures were full of life and motion! 

 
























































At the School of Information Technology Art Teacher Marilyn Simon created a grid portrait drawing/painting project that used the contemporary artist Chuck Close as a point of departure. 

This STEAM project used math, art and technology.  First students learned about the grid technique of Chuck Close on Youtube.  Chuck Close, who has numerous physical disabilities, developed this method to help himself "create 3-D space" in two-dimensions. Students were inspired by his story (see video below).

Next students chose a portrait to draw using this grid method. Students could choose to do either a portrait of themselves, or a portrait of someone famous.

Many opted for the latter.
Next students used tempera paint on canvas boards to bring these drawings to life. With the difficult part of the project over (the grid drawing part), students were happy to use invented colors and patterns to complete their portraits.  The results were a surprise for students and teacher alike!