CAHTS Students Study Grid Art and Chuck Close

Students in Ms. Reyes' STEAM Class have embarked on an exciting new pen and ink drawing project using animals, the grid art enlargement method, and the inspiration of living and contemporary American artist, Chuck Close.

As Ms. Reyes recently explained to these STEAM students, using a mathematical grid is one of the easiest ways for an artist to enlarge any image by hand.  First one creates a grid over a selected image.  Then one enlarges the grid while maintaining the proportions.  This second grid is placed over a larger blank paper that will eventually become the finished artwork.  "When art teachers grid, measure, and draw, we use geometry," Erica Gibbons writes in the December 2014 issue of School Arts on p. 8.*

To begin this project each student selected an image of an animal of his or her choice.  The student was then required to research the characteristics of the animal and document the information into his or her writing journal.  Characteristics included its physical makeup and structure, its place in the food web, and the environment in which it lives.  Special attentionwas paid to any unique textures of the animal's skin, fur or hair,as these would be reproduced in the artwork.  Next students printed out an image of this selected animal from the computer.  Math skills were then needed to lay down the first and second grids carefully.

STEAM students learned that, "Fifteenth century artists wanted to find a way of being able to record the natural world more accurately, so they invented a number of different machines to help them draw what was in front of them. Leon Battista Alberti, 1404 - 1472, wrote the first general treatise Della Pittura on the laws of perspective in 1435. Alberti's Frame was the name of the most successful of the drawing devices invented. This drawing machine is made up of a square wooden frame, across which horizontal and vertical threads are stretched at regular intervals to form a grid. A foot or so in front of this gridded frame is a rod, the same height as the distance from the bottom of the frame to the middle of the grid. This rod is important because, by lining up the eye with the rod and the centre of the grid, the eye is always fixed in the same position when looking at things."  LINK

     In addition, students researched and learned about the living American artist, Chuck Close, who uses the grid extensively and from his wheelchair to make his large scale artworks.  In one of the many videos Close has placed on Youtube, the artist explains that when he was growing up, no one in education recognized his learning disability.  Close has difficulty in the way his eye perceives the three dimensional world.  Thus he developed and still uses the grid method of enlargement to help him to break down the large image into smaller, more manageable pieces.  He further explains how his painting is much like writing.  LINK

     Thus these STEAM students realized they were not alone in facing the daunting task of making a small image larger (or vice-versa) with a small artistic tool such as their pens.  Their capacity to struggle with their new medium was also inspired by Close's methods.  Pen and ink drawing is a slow labor of love and Ms. Reyes was there every step of the way to help the students.

     Students were asked to comment on their experiences. 
     Samantha said "sometimes the pen gets a little stuck on the paper and the ink goes everywhere."

     Yvenide said "it is easy to make a mistake.  You have to be very careful but I like the challenge."

     Katherine said, "It's a lot of work but the effect is worth it!"

Mr. Reyes commented that she is, "impressed that the students are working so well with pen and ink even thought this is the first time working with this medium."






* School Arts 

New CAHTS Grid Art Display Case

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, students in Ms. Reyes' STEAM class recently embared on an exciting new pen and ink drawing project using animals as their subjects, the grid art enlargement method, and the inspiration of contemporary American artist, Chuck Close.  (See: CAHTS Students Study Grid Art and Chuck Close) http://steamempowerment.blogspot.com/2015/02/cahts-students-study-grid-art-and-chuck.html

Now this art work has become a beautiful display behind glass in a large display case at CAHTS.

Many viewers have been gazing with awe at these artworks, marveling at the extensive use of pen and ink to create such large and powerful drawings.  It is very clearly that Ms. Reyes' class worked exceptionally hard on this STEAM project.  Congratulations to them!

A Long term STEAM / Collaborative Art Project Reaches Three Quarters-Completion

Since the Fall of 2019, School 21 Art Teacher Raquel Ford and WP Art Professor in Residence Triada Samaras have been working on a large-scale clay tile installation piece that will become a permanent art project on a wall in the lobby of School 21 in Paterson. Funded by the WP Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Arts Integration Grant.  This piece was interrupted during the pandemic. 

Since the fall of 2022, Ms. Ford has been reviving this work even as the WP Arts Integration Grant ended in the Spring of 2023 after ten years in the Paterson Public Schools.

Ms. Samaras and Ms. Ford conceived of this enormous art installation in several stages with the theme of honoring School Principal Joanne Riviello in mind first. Ms. Riviello is an enormous arts enthusiast at School 21 and has encouraged many projects in the school building in all arts media including visual arts, music, theater, dance  for a wide variety of occasions and celebrations. PS. 21 students, families, staff, and teachers have benefited greatly and the spirit of the arts can be seen, heard, and felt everywhere in the school building. Principal Riviello is celebrated at School 21 for her consistent arts passion and support.

To begin this project, Ms. Samaras and Ms. Ford photographed Ms. Riviello's hands forming a heart leading to the inspiration for the large-scale grid art piece that has emerged from that idea.

Next they created a grid on the floor in paper as a mock-up for the final composition.  Math and technology were used to calculate the squares, explore different possibilities for the composition and explore color combinations. 

Next, the process of glazing the tiles began.  Ms. Ford experimented with several materials provided by the Dodge grant to paint/glaze the tiles. Eventually she settled on glaze and each student contributed a handprint to a tile working within the framework of the idea: "Unity Through Diversity" which is the title of the piece.

Then, Ms. Ford learned how to use the kiln at another Dodge funded middle school, the Joseph A. Taub School.  This school building, a new facility, has two brand new kilns.  Taub School Art Teacher Patty Kaminski welcomed Ms. Ford into the school and helped her to get started using the kilns and firing the tiles: 166 tiles in all 6" x 6" each.  Ms Ford transported unglazed and then glazed tiles back and forth between the Taub School and School 21.   Ms. Ford and Ms. Kaminsky learned how to use the new kilns together.

Ms. Ford explains the tiles with the diagonal division between the warm and cool colors were the hardest to create.  "For the split tiles I had the students do a base coat, then handprints, and then I used the projector and traced the lines in pencil, square by square. Then I used masking tape to cover up the portion I was keeping, then washed off and "erased" the outside glaze.  Then I painted those areas with the opposing color, had the students place their hands on it again, untaped it, and used a thin paintbrush to paint the black lines on the top.  Next was the clear glaze and the last step was baking them in the kiln."

Finally in the spring of 2024 a finished art work emerged!  Principal Rivielo's hands can be seen forming the heart shape.  The hand prints of the students are surrounding her hands..

The final step in this process will be the installation of this art project onto the wall in the lobby of School 21.  This will require the help of the Buildings Department in the Paterson School District.  Ms Ford looks forward to this process and will provide photos of the installation as it happens. Stay tuned!

 "Unity Through Diversity"

School 21, Paterson NJ

166 Ceramic Tiles- 6' x 6"

Glazed Tiles, Fired

Here are some other grid art projects done in the Paterson Public Schools during the ten year Geraldine R. Dodge funded WP STEAM / Arts Integration Grant. 

WP Art PIR Triada Samaras was involved with all of them as well..

1) Einstein Comes Alive at NRC  2016

2) A Founding Father Comes Alive at a Science Fair at Don Bosco 2017

3) New CAHTS Grid Art Display Case 2015

4) Art Math Integration at New Roberto Clemente School and Don Bosco Technical Academy 2019

5)   CAHTS Students Study Grid Art and Chuck Close  2015