IN THE CLASSROOM

Danette Goulet

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

reporter Danette Goulet visits a campus within the Newport-Mesa school

district and writes about her experience.

Gone are the days of schoolchildren drawing and painting random,

unintentionally abstract artwork while making balls with rubber cement.

The atmosphere in Eastbluff Elementary School’s art room is far from the

paint-splattered chaos that I remember.

Bright sunlight streamed into the tidy art room, where fourth-graders sat

with pencils poised above clean, white paper and clear plastic rulers.

The walls were covered with groupings of impressive student artwork.

There were Modigliani-style self-portraits done in watercolors, and

brightly colored tissue collages of lady bugs and inchworms fashioned

after that of Eric Carle, a children’s illustrator.

But all eyes were focused on art teacher Debi Haymond, who stood in front

of the day’s impeccably neat lesson plan.

Haymond meets with students every other week for an hour anda half.

During the last 10 years, she has developed a style of teaching in which

each lesson incorporates a master’s work and an art technique.

On the white board behind her there was a print of a city street in Paris

painted by French artist Maurice Utrillo. Above that were three sketches

demonstrating the steps to creating a similar scene.

Haymond gave the students a brief history of Utrillo and his work before

jumping into an explanation of his techniques.

She had students place a horizontal line just below the middle of the

paper, instead of near the bottom, where young artists are prone to

putting it.

The teacher explained perspective and how the horizon would shift if they

were sitting in a tree as opposed to sitting on the ground.

The next key ingredient was creating a vanishing point where the street

curved out of sight.

The concept of the curving street and the different perspective of the

shops along the street was very complex for the fourth-graders. Step by

step, she took the students through the beginning stages -- insisting

that every line be just so.

At first, it seemed to stifle the children. But as the lesson progressed

and the skeleton of the drawing was constructed, students had more

freedom to make their artwork unique.

They could add as many doors and windows as they wished. They could add

window boxes and signs. Students asked if they could make some buildings

shorter and others taller and wondered how they could make an alley or a

mailbox.

One table of students, which I dubbed the “coffee-talk” group, focused on

making their prominent building a Starbucks or a Diedrich’s. Another

group wanted to stay with the Paris theme and insisted on French names on

all of their buildings. A third was interested in window boxes and

awnings.

So what started out as a very rigid lesson relaxed into creativity.

Still, it was far more advanced than the elementary school art taught

years ago.

Today, children are taught more at a younger age. Teachers expect more of

them and I’d say they are living up to those expectations.

FYI

* WHO: Fourth-grade art students

* WHAT: Creating city street scenes fashioned after the work of Maurice

Utrillo

* WHERE: Eastbluff Elementary School in Newport Beach

* LESSON: Perspective and creating a horizon with a vanishing point

PH

FO