Sixth Grade Legacy Project: Our California

Del Mar Heights School Sixth-Grade Legacy Mural Installed

    Del Mar Heights students are challenged to develop a broad range of twenty-first century skills during their time in elementary school. Collaboration, technical ability, problem-solving, evaluation and revision, and personal and collective responsibility were all qualities exhibited by sixth grade students as they worked together on the annual Del Mar Heights Arts Sixth-Grade Legacy Project. Each year, Del Mar Heights sixth-graders are tasked with taking a large-scale public art piece from concept to completion. The class of 2015 completed a truly wonderful piece in recognition of their time at Del Mar Heights School. This mural, a landscape of their own vision of California, was installed with pride on the Del Mar Heights Campus and will hang in the school as a reminder of the legacy that the class of 2015 leaves behind. It was my honor and great joy to mentor these youths as they created such a striking piece.

International Music

1) Gajah Mina from Tyler Yamin on Vimeo.


I'm not sure if you've heard, but our World Music Program has been stellar this trimester, with Brazilian rhythm, dance, and song teacher Stefanie Schmitz and Balinese Gamelan musician Tyler Yamin welcoming our young musicians to encounter unique instruments and traditions.

Our PTA, through the Center for World Music, has arranged for a complete Gamelan orchestra to be hosted on our campus for our students' use. As students enter they remove their shoes and take their positions. Within minutes they are creating fascinating, mesmerizing music. Examples of two Gamelan pieces are found above.



 

Celebrating Art Together

Student-designed art show programs (I have one or two left if you'd like a copy)

Thank you for attending our annual Del Mar Heights Art Show! The media and innovations center was transformed with vibrant, thoughtful work representing every child in the school on exhibit. Thank you for supporting the creative work of our students and taking your time to enjoy the evening with me.

An ArtPartners visit from Professional photographer and graphic designer Garrett Highhouse

Sixth Grade students are living in a vast landscape of digital imagery. More than any generation before, these students will live with an intuitive visual vocabulary created by bearing witness to thousands and thousands of images, made available through internet culture.

But there is an art to creating images, and masters of the craft are able to understand their choices and create images to fulfill a goal. Garrett Highhouse, a local sports, surf, lifestyle, and fashion photographer graced us with a visit to share about a wide range of topics. We looked at lighting, composition, equipment, and motivation. We talked about the business of photography and the necessity to create a visual "brand". Needless to say, the sixth-graders were mesmerized.

Portraits of the Boy-King

Tutankhamun Portraits

Sixth Grade

After many weeks of careful study in correspondence with social studies work, students have finished oil-pastel Pharoah Tutankhamun portraits. Proportion, Triadic and complementary color combinations, and three zoned shading were the main foci. Students’ thoughtful work and detailed artistry create vivid images of the Boy-King.

Well done Sixth-grade!

Plein Air Tuts

After many weeks of careful study in correspondence with social studies work, students are beginning to finish their oil-pastel King Tutankhamun portraits. Proportion, color combinations, and three zoned shading were the main foci, while the join of working outside in our beautiful garden nature center was the fringe benefit. Ocean view anyone? Yes please!

Persian Rhythms

See here a quick glimpse into the work our Sixth-grade students have been undertaking with our guest musician of our World Music Program, Kourosh Taghavi. His non-western rhythms have challenged the kids to grow and hear the world in a different way. Lovely stuff!

A Vacation Challenge

After learning about the naturalist artwork of Andy Goldsworthy, I have issued a challenge to our sixth-grade students. During this vacation week, if the desire should strike, I encourage them to create a piece of art completely out of natural resources and set in nature. Take a picture or video of the work and we will post it both on this website and on our school news program KHTS News.

Of course I will create an entry as well.

When learning about Andy Goldsworthy we spoke about how a setting and a material both influences artworks and communicates specific meanings. We also came to conclusions about how art can be perceived as valuable based on both the product that is made and the process of its creation. As an example, many of Goldsworthy's works simply disappear as they are consumed by natural processes and yet the value in their creation is evident and difficult to dispute. Heady stuff, this.

Reaching for The Heights

This project was started as the last activity of last school year for our current sixth grade students. As mature artists, writers, and readers we work with symbol almost intuitively. But this intuition is built on many, many experiences thinking and talking about symbolism in school and at home.

The human hand is an obvious symbol. it can be expressive and representational. It can show affection as well as dissent. In the case of this project, the hand represents the reach of each of us as individuals, striving to grab and hold something of desire. As we talked about it and quite unexpectedly, our sixth-grade students began to frame their hand projects as a kind of self-portraiture, revealing that they all have desire and complexity in their own lives.

The project involves working with different types of line, consistent application of detail, balance and contrast, and color generalization (background). It is a great way to start our year and a great way to engender good, high-level discussion about both art and individual purpose and agency.