Overview

 Visual Arts at I.S. 349

See our Summer/Spring Art Exhibition here:  https://is349futureartists.weebly.com/

As part of a robust and well-rounded curriculum, every student receives Visual Arts as part of their schedule. Children acquire skills through Visual Arts and engage their creativity to make them better problem solvers and critical thinkers across subjects. Students create works in a variety of mediums, including including acrylic paint, oil pastel, sculpture, collage, watercolor, ink printmaking, clay, and mixed media. Overall, Students are guided to connect their artwork to the culture and fabric of their everyday lives, so they can access and use art in a way that is useful to them and relate to the world around them.

Our visual arts program is based on the New York State requirements and standards for arts learning, and guided by New York City's Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts (https://www.weteachnyc.org/resources/resource/visual-arts-blueprint-for-teaching-and-learning-1/).  The arts and core subjects such as ELA and Math are often integrated within the visual arts lessons and projects.

Math and art are connected through learning about spatial relationships in drawing portraits in proportion and scale.  Also, math and geometry are connected through the construction of mandalas.  Students learned the formulas for diameter, circumference, and radius and from measurements, created their own mandalas in pencil, oil pastel and ink. The Rubin Museum has collaborated with our program to send visiting artists to further extend work on math and mandalas in a 3-session residency.

In addition, Pratt University sent a teaching artist for 10 week residency that connects math to art through the study of architecture.  Students' final projects were a 3D printed design of a structure they created and presented in an official critique at Pratt Institute's School of Architecture.