Student art exhibit at Flora-Monroe library

Parents, family, friends and the community are all invited to visit the Flora-Monroe Township Public Library for an Art Enrichment exhibit. Projects made by Carroll Elementary School third, fourth, and fifth graders are displayed throughout the library.

The projects will remain on display for approximately a month, and can be seen during regular library hours.

Third grade students learned about texture, colors and shapes that make patterns on a turtles shell, created their own unique turtle and then had a turtle race.

They also made fantasy paintings by soaking paper with water then splattering watercolors on the paper. They then used ink to draw out fanciful floating creatures like artist Marc Chagall's dreamlike painting.

Third graders' tissue paper collages with analogous colors for blazing hot skies and swimmers in cool water are in the style of Henri Matisse. Nighttime landscapes show depth and distance with 3-D buildings.

Alexander Calder's sculptures assembled from junk motivated an assortment of unusual bugs that require different skills than for making 2- D art. A favorite project imitated elaborate portraits of royalty from a time before cameras. Portraits were drawn with pastels and embellished with real jewelry and lace. Even the men wore lace!

Fourth graders practiced realism by drawing simple objects and then portraits in profile with shadows, shading and cast shadows. They then explored cubism, a style made famous by Picasso where objects are disassembled and rearranged in an unrealistic manner. A theme was chosen for collages painted in complementary colors.

In another fourth grade project, students built up bird sculptures from a wire armature and finished with plaster-craft and carefully painted details. Their landscape collages were made with colored contact paper.

Eye-catching creations are the soft sculptures made by fifth graders. The class of eight boys learned body proportions and basic sewing skills to join the parts.

Gustav Klimt used real gold foil in his paintings that sparked ideas for a collage with colored foil. Students also experimented with one-point perspective and scale. They drew tools with super realism then went abstract with tools in a triad color scheme.

A drawing of their own "mug shot" followed learning about forensic artists, police sketches and courtroom artists. The final work was a drawing incorporating all they have learned thus far, portraying a career, with appropriate clothing, environment, and tools.

Grace Woodruff teaches the after-school Art Enrichment classes for grades one-six. The classes are sponsored by Psi Iota Xi and the Gifted and Talented Program at Carroll Elementary.