Seasonal Gardens Under the Sun

We started the year with a slide show of Ms. Frostick's artwork and an introduction to her process for her current paintings, "Elaborate Doodles." These paintings start with a free form sharpie doodle that crosses itself multiple times to create spaces. The spaces are then filled with colors and patterns using paint and sharpie.

For our first class, Ms. Frostick brought in examples of patterns from photos in National Geographic magazines. Patterns are found both in nature and in man-made objects. Using repetition of a shape, basically anything can become a pattern. The students worked with these patterns on premilimary designs before starting larger paintings.

At the beginning of 2013, the classes did a collaborative exercise that involved using the principles learned in their painting with one or more partners. Each student worked on a piece for a period of time and then they switched their work to the next student at their table. Everyone was able to add something to the pieces at each table.

Expanding on the idea of collaboration and patterns, we started a project where each student would create their own stepping stone that would all be put together into one area of the garden outside. The students collected natural materials like leaves, twigs and flowers then created assemblages by gluing these items onto a piece of cardboard. The assemblages were sized to fit onto containers that the students brought in for pouring the concrete in to. Students collected plastic milk jugs and cardboard boxes to use as containers.

Once the assemblages were complete, the classes took their materials outside and had concrete poured into their containers. They then pressed their assemblages into the wet concrete and allowed them to dry so that the stepping stones would retain the patterns of the natural objects they had used.

In addition to the classwork with Ms. Frostick, Ms. Ellis also visited to teach a bookmaking workshop. Students created covers for their books after her visit.

At the end of the year, the classes went on a field trip to the Science Museum of Virginia to learn about natural sciences. At the school open house on June 7, examples of the students' "Elaborate Doodles" were displayed along with a slideshow of photos of the project taken during the year.


Thanks to Mr. Davis and Ms. Ellis for making the grant a success and to the 5th Grade Teachers; Mr. John Bennett, Mr. Chris Lombardy, and Ms. Kathy Peaseley, for their assistance with collecting materials for the stepping stones.