TRICIA TOONE | artist & teacher

Pinhole Photography and Frenchtown History

Frenchtown Elementary School has been in the process of creating a documentary about the history of Frenchtown. Seventh and eighth graders have researching the local Frenchtown Cemetery including prominent families, civil war veterans, and monument symbolism and construction. 

In art, they created pinhole cameras from oatmeal containers and shoe boxes. We discussed the basic concepts that make a camera function. After some practice at school, we took a trip over to the cemetery to research the area and take photos with our pinhole cameras. 

Photos were taken with their cameras, then developed in the "Mobile Darkroom" aka van wrapped in black paper. (Please refrain from the "free candy" jokes. Heard enough at this point. Thank you 8th graders. : )

Students quickly got a sense of the factors and technical difficulties associated with photography, a nice contrast from the ease of the digital cameras and cell phone cameras they are used to.

The film stills shown were taken by Keith and Laura from River Union Stage, who are coordinating the Frenchtown Documentary. The Frenchtown Documentary premier will be shown on June 12. More details to come.

Frenchtown Elementary and Kingwood Township School At the Open Space Gallery

The Open Space Gallery in Frenchtown, NJ donated their space to Kingwood and Frenchtown Schools for a student art show. Student work from grades Kindergarten through 8th was displayed. We had a huge turnout to the opening reception the evening of February 5th. Many people left the show with new appreciation for young artists and what they are capable of. 

Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Mathieu for donating your space to us. Also, thank you Amber Gale for including Frenchtown School into your event. I had a great time working with you!

Here are some photos from the event.

Scarecrows at Frenchtown Pumpkin Festival

The Language Arts Teacher and I collaborated to have the middle school students create scarecrows for the first annual Frenchtown Pumpkin Festival.

In groups, students depicted characters from the books they are were reading in Language Arts. For instance, 7th grade recently read My Side of the Mountain. They wrote character descriptions for "Sam" and "Frightful". From there, they drew sketches, planned construction and materials, then constructed their "scarecrows".

Materials were open ended, but they mostly used paper mache, paint, found objects, clothing, etc. All paper mache was coated with a thin coat of either polyurethane or spar varnish. They worked for about 40-80 minutes per day for one week.

We crossed our fingers and hoped they would withstand the weather for a week to make it till the festival. We had horrible fall weather for most of the week! Heavy wind and rain! At this point, they've been out for three weeks and are all mostly intact! Unfortunately, "Frightful" (below) has lost his wings. (Lasted fairly long, though, considering those wings are quite heavy. The wet paper could only hold up so long.)

We all had a ton of fun and the town really enjoyed having the sculptures around. I'm hoping this will become an annual tradition.

     
  

Raku Firing at Frenchtown School

John Fulwood of Kissimmee River Pottery came to Frenchtown School to raku fire the ceramic work of grades 5-8. Despite the rainy day, I have to admit I personally had fun spending the day outside huddled around the kiln with John, and his assistant Marion. John brought a canopy for the students to stand under, although most decided it was more important to get an up-close look at the action than to be comfy and dry.

For most of the students of Frenchtown School, this was their first experience with ceramics. From raw clay to the raku firing, it was fun to appreciate the wonder of the ceramic process with them. I hope to have John back again next year!

Thank you Frenchtown PTA and Board of Education for making it possible!

Hunterdon Art Museum Young Artists Showcase

Frenchtown Elementary School participated in the Young Artists Showcase at Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ. It was an excellent show and we will be sure to participate next year. Congratulations to the young artists from Frenchtown, Holland Township, and Delaware Township whose work was selected to be in the exhibit.

Hunterdon Art Museum is a great local resource for those who live in Hunterdon or surrounding counties. The museum also offers adult and child classes throughout the year. I'm excited to attend the Life Drawing Marathon on Saturday, March 24. 

Here's some photos from the Young Artists Showcase.

There was a good turnout, despite the snowstorm we had that day.

A visitor admires this Frenchtown student's spraypaint peice. The 7th grader had been researching this technique on his own and made many attempts after school and at home. His hard work has quite an impact.

Tim Burton in 8th Grade Art

Tim Burton will be coming up more than once this year in 8th Grade. We just compared a clip from "Nightmare Before Christmas" with "Vincent", a short animated film created by Tim Burton in 1982. Students noticed so many consistent stylistic traits. Here's a few.

• large, vacant eyes
• limited palette, if any color at all
• three dimensional spaces have the appearance of a two dimensional line drawing
• exaggerated forms (extremely round, long, or thin)
• Tiny feet, hands, noses

One student jumped out of his seat to pause the clip of "Vincent". 

"There's Jack!"

True enough, at 5:11 you can see what looks like an early version of Jack and Sally haunting little Vincent. A great example of an artist chewing on an idea over time.

 

Students are now designing an original character inspired by the style of Tim Burton. They will create the character as a sewn material soft-sculpture. I'll post images of the characters as the project progresses. Later in the year, we will revisit Tim Burton as we will attempt stop motion animation.