Keepers

Lincoln School parents will be able to purchase before the holiday season mugs, tote bags, tee shirts, ornaments and more with darling, up close and personal cartoon self portrait keepsakes of their children as part of the annual Square 1 Art fundraiser to benefit PTA-sponsored projects and activities.

Perkins School parents will be able to do the same in February or March.

District Pre-K-12 Visual Art Leader Courtney Dentel, who shifted gears this school year after teaching art at Newark High School for 18 years and began teaching

Pre-K through second grade visual art classes at Lincoln and Perkins, decided children’s self portraits would be just the ticket for the annual fundraisers at both schools.

“I chose to do self-portrait cartoons this year for each grade, UPK-2 because children’s self-portraits make amazing keepsakes to cherish through the years and to look back on as the children grow into adults,” she said. “I also think having each grade do the same activity has served as a powerful assessment tool to see where each child is in their artistic development. According to Victor Lowenfeld, children who are 3 - 8 years old are moving out of the scribble stage and through the pre-schematic and schematic stages of artistic development.”

Lowenfeld  (1903–1960) was a professor of art education at the  Pennsylvania State University whose ideas have influenced many art educators. He emphasized ways in which children at different stages of artistic development “should be stimulated by appropriate media and themes, and . . . the curriculum . . . guided mainly by developmental considerations.”

“This common activity of creating self-portraits across the board has helped me see where students currently are and where I can help them develop,” Dentel said. “Just as we go

through different stages of physical, cognitive, and emotional development, we also progress through artistic development stages.”

As preparation for the initiative, Dentel had her classes at both schools explore some self-portraits created by famous artists as well as  the idea of selfies in today's world to help them make the connection about self-portraits.

“We then examined some familiar cartoons to see how cartoon drawings differ from realistic drawings, paintings, or photographs. We noticed that many cartoon artists create their characters with very large heads, often larger than the bodies, and use simple shapes for facial features and the body,“ Dentel continued. “Students were then asked to look at themselves closely in the mirror to notice all the details that make them an individual person. Their goal was to try and capture those details in their drawings so that the viewers would be able to tell that their drawing was a self-portrait in the style of a cartoon.“ 

UPK and kindergarten classes made tissue paper prints for their colorful backgrounds and first and second grade classes made bubble print backgrounds. Their self-portrait

d r a w i n g s w e r e outlined with black marker,  cut out and g lued onto their backgrounds. 

“I think our students did a fabulous job,” Dentel said. “Each mark they used to capture themselves was intentional and meaningful, e v e n i n t h e m o s t u n r e c o g n i z a b l e s e l f -portraits. When we can understand the different stages children progress through artistically, we can bet te r apprec ia te the i r work! I'm hopeful that this will be a great fundraiser for both schools! 

And just what d id the children think about making self portrait cartoons?

Mackenzie VanCuren, a f i r s t g r a d e r i n L o r a Prebalick’s class at Lincoln S c h o o l s a i d : “ I t w a s actually very fun.  I tried to make it l ike me and it a c t u a l l y w o r k e d .  M y favorite part was blowing bubbles and f l ipping  a p a p e r o n t o p o f t h e bubbles.”

Her classmate, Onika Hill said: “After we blew the bubbles we waited a few days, then we drew and colored the cartoon and then we glued it on the bubble paper.   My cartoon looks like me because I have curly hair and I drew curly hair. My favorite part was using 3 colors of bubbles.”

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Thanks to Courtney Dentel for providing art and photos!