Davis, G. (2016, April 14). Art Bus visits CMS through STELLAR Project grant. The Creswell Chronicle, pp. 9, 16.
Art Bus visits CMS through STELLAR Project grant
Story and photos by Gini Davis
The River Road Park and Recreation District’s Imagination Bus, otherwise known as Artie the Art Bus, is visiting Creswell Middle School each Wednesday in April. As a mobile art education classroom, Artie is bringing art lessons to CMS students as an enrichment experience connected with a multi-year, K-12 grant through the STELLAR (Strategies for Technology Enhanced Learning and Literacy through ARt)
Project.
On April 6, Nori Rice and Ayele Forde of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) and Imagination International, led CMS students who boarded the Art Bus in drawing lessons focused on horizon, perspective, vanishing point and the use of three colors for shading as they first sketched and then colored a landscape habitat for the imaginary creatures they would later create.
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Ayele Forde, with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and the program Imagination International, demonstrates horizon and perspective to CMS students as the Art Bus visits the school last Wednesday.
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Jullianna Colunga works on shading her landscape drawing on the Art Bus. Weekly visits by the bus are part of a grant-funded art program at CMS.
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Caden Lloyd works on a landscape drawing project, including horizon, perspective, vanishing point and shading, as part of a grant-funded art program at Creswell Middle School.
This week, students will begin creating their own original creatures, called Creatures of Amalthea. The Creatures of Amalthea project focuses on creature design and was created by industry-leading concept artist Terryl Whitlatch, an illustrator known for her creature designs for Lucasfilm and her illustrations in the Katurran Odyssey book, among other projects.
The three-part Creatures of Amalthea curriculum guides students through three stages of creature design, from research and design to drawing and coloring steps to achieve a full-color concept illustration.
The STELLAR Project is a collaborative effort involving rural school districts in Lane County, JSMA, the Lane Education Service District, the Oregon Writing Project and the University of Oregon’s Center for Advanced Technology in Education.
The goal is to provide teachers and administrators in high-need rural schools with professional development in teaching the visual arts in ways that lead to improved student outcomes in visual literacy; reading and writing of informational texts; digital literacy skills; the integration of visual literacy; thinking and informational writing across the curriculum; and proficiency related to national standards in visual arts, writing informational texts and use of technology.
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On the Art Bus, Jess Aiken works on coloring her landscape drawing.
The current multi-year grant in which Creswell is participating partners with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art to link Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) with argumentative writing core curriculum goals. Fifteen Creswell School District teachers are participating in various ways, along with teachers in South Lane, Lowell and Oakridge.
“I’ve always marveled at the accomplishments of rural schools – how much they do with what little they have and how much they need,” said Peggy Marconi, associate director of the Oregon Writing Project at the University of Oregon, who helped spearhead the grant application process.
“I’m so excited about the potential of using that connection between art and literature and visual literacy to help improve critical thinking and reasoning skills,” Marconi said, noting that while VTS is not new, connecting it to argumentative writing is, and the results are paying off.
“There’s no judgment in art, so as we encourage students to say and then write about what they think is going on in an image and talk about what makes them say that and what more they can find, test results are looking good for improving students’ written fluency, detail and reasoning.” Marconi said.
Two years ago, Creswell participated in Project Direct, which involved weekly work in digital literacy and visual thinking strategies. The grant involving Creswell, South Lane, Lowell and Oakridge schools began last year, and will continue next year in Creswell and South Lane.
“Because of the relationship with JSMA there are funds for additional enrichment, such as Artie and working with the Lane Regional Arts Council and the JSMA Art Bridge Scholars Program,” Marconi said. “It’s really nice to be able to bring those kind of resources to the community.”
Participating teachers receive three textbooks, free class trips to JSMA, and meet in a virtual platform each week to discuss the texts and how to apply the lessons. They also receive a stipend, since they work on the project on their own time.
“In working with [CSD Superintendent] Todd Hamilton and the teachers. I’m so impressed with Creswell, from the bottom up to the top down,” Marconi said.