Kids expand their understanding of art

Fourth-graders Jeffrey McGhee, Terrance Joyner and Jamia Union all have done original art drawings. Last month, they and other Keeven Elementary School kids got a chance to expand their knowledge of other forms of art.

During December, the North St. Louis County youngsters made weekly field trips to the St. Louis Art Museum. They were taking part in the museum's Arts in the Basic Curriculum (ABC) program.

One Wednesday morning, Young Saint Louis.com joined a dozen Keeven kids on one of their museum field trips. That day, they were studying Japanese and Chinese art styles.

Their other December trips included experience with African and decorative art forms.

The kids didn't just look at art. On each trip, they created their own artwork that went with that week's theme. During the visit on African art, the kids made original face masks.

Ten-year-old Raven Beverly said she made an African girl's mask that portrayed "love and kindness."

For the decorative arts, the kids designed and built chairs out of paper.

On the Asian art trip, they created a pen-and-ink landscape on a vertical art scroll.

Ten-year-old Terrance Joyner said landscapes were his favorite type of art. He said the best one he's done was a pencil drawing of his own house and yard.

"Sometimes, I give the artwork to my Mom and she puts it into a frame," Terrance said. The drawing of his house is one that was framed.

Nine-year-old Jeffrey McGhee said his favorite original drawing is of Rams running back Marshall Faulk. "I drew it in pencil and then traced over it with markers," he said. That drawing is in his bedroom at home.

Ten-year-old Jamia Union said her best original artwork was a self-portrait painting. She said, "It's framed and hanging in our hallway."

During the museum visit, the kids each got a sketch book. Then, they got a tour by museum art educator Heidi Lung through some of the Asian galleries.

The kids looked at different styles of Asian art scrolls. In addition, they saw several samples of multi-paneled wall screens. These larger works of art were used to screen off portions of larger rooms in Japanese buildings.

Ms. Lung urged the kids to make sketches of various landscape features from both the scrolls and the screens. They were then to use those elements when their put together their own landscape scroll.

The kids also got to look out one of the museum windows. That gave them a chance to study landscape features from the museum grounds. Those included the lake at the foot of Art Hill in Forest Park.

The kids then went through a gallery of American art. Ms. Lung wanted them to compare Asian landscapes to those painted by American artists. One painting was of the City of St. Louis in 1846.

One difference they noted was Asian scrolls were usually vertical in shape. The American landscapes mostly were horizontal. The Asian scrolls was flexible since they often are rolled up for easy storage. Most American landscapes were in rigid frames.

Then, museum educator Lung gave them some tips on doing their own art scrolls. She told them to rough out their scroll design in their sketch books. That's because the scroll surface was made with flimsy rice paper.

"You can't erase anything on the rice paper," she said. She told them that if they made a mis-stroke on the rice paper, try to incorporate that into something else in the design.

When it came time to do her scroll, Raven Beverly came up with a unique idea.

Her drawing was of a river running through a town. Kids in boats were racing on the river. There was even a river bridge that was tall enough so the boats could get under it.

Raven said she likes to look at artwork. "I like the colors. And, if you concentrate, you can even see the artist's brush strokes," she said.

Of the four kids questioned by YSL.com, Jeffrey McGhee was the only one that had any artwork entered in a competition.

"I made a Martin Luther King Day poster and it was entered. But, I didn't win," he said.

Jamia Union was the only kid questioned who wanted to be an artist when she grew up. But, Terrance Joyner said he'd like to be an architect.