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Upper School (Resident) |
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The Lower School art program is based on elements and principles of art that inspire children to express their creative individuality. Each child's eyes are opened when exposed to the world of art. The art program seeks to advocate the arts as a legitimate and robust part of life, raise the student's awareness of aesthetics, which is one of the distinguishing characteristics of humankind, and to impress upon students a respect for creativity. Every student leaves the Lower School with a full appreciation for art. In pre-K, four-year-olds learn how to understand what they are seeing around them. They learn how to draw using simple shapes and how to be aware of details. For example, when drawing a house, students learn to see that the roof can be a triangle, the house can be a square and the rectangle windows have windowpanes. The concept of depth is also introduced at an appropriate level of understanding with each grade. Art terms are used as a fluent part of classroom conversation. Through hands-on activities, students learn the true meaning of terms such as horizon line, depth, foreground, middle ground, background, symmetrical, balance, proportion, and composition. Students have opportunities to work with a variety of art mediums. Every child in the school creates with ceramics, watercolor, tempera and acrylic paint, oil pastels, chalk pastels, colored pencils and much more. Each grade seems to have a favorite project of the year other than their ceramic piece that is always exciting. Pre-kindergarten loves painting a full body self-portrait. They begin to notice details like the texture of their hair, the shapes of the eyes and in general start to understand how to draw people that aren't stick people anymore. Kindergarten loves to do a drawing of their family with their home in the background. First grade enjoys creating collages with a variety of bright and fun textured papers, buttons, sequins, foam shapes and more. They love the freedom to create whatever comes to their mind. Second grade does an excellent job on their watercolor paintings. The objective focuses on not only learning how to use and control watercolor paint, but it further develops depth concepts. Third grade loves their large, chalk pastel dinosaur drawings. The primary objective is proportion and filling up the entire composition. Fourth grade's favorite project is a black and white line drawing of a man with a very long beard or a woman with really big hair. The children have fun while learning about how to overlap lines. The fifth grade creates a very impressive color pencil drawings that show shading and depth in a realistic style. Darlington students love art and look forward to coming into an environment that is both positive and inspiring.
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