Mrs. Robinson's 2nd grade students explored the artistic choices an illustrator makes, using the Vermont Red Clover Award book Art Dog and Words Come Alive strategies, with help from Flynn Center for the Arts Teaching Artist Susanna Ohlson, Mrs. Walters and Miss Amy. Today was our first workshop using drama to help us better understand the job of an illustrator.
First, we read the words of the story; brainstormed ways that we could show those words with our bodies; then examined the choices made by the illustrator and tried to portray that choice with pantomime, instead of paint. (In the photo, we're "zooming off" into the night in our brushmobile).
Art Dog, 1998 winner of Vermont's Red Clover Award for illustration, was a great text to work with. The action-packed story chronicles the life of Arthur Dog, guard at Dogopolis Museum of Art and fan of Leonardo Dog Vinci. Arthur leads a quiet life--except when the moon is full. Then, his eyes grow bright and his fur seems to glisten... and soon he is out on the streets painting secret masterpieces: lightning slashes, glowing splashes and monsters ten stories high. No one knows who the mysterious Art Dog is... until the night when "Brrringggg!" the museum alarm goes off, and Arthur finds himself in the middle of a heist of the Mona Woofa.
Author/illustrator Thacher Hurd has created an action-packed story that offers a canine view of many artistic masterpieces: Wood's American Gothic, Matisse's Dance of Life and Jazz, Vermeer's Girl with Turban, Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, da Vinci's Mona Lisa and others.
First, we read the words of the story; brainstormed ways that we could show those words with our bodies; then examined the choices made by the illustrator and tried to portray that choice with pantomime, instead of paint. (In the photo, we're "zooming off" into the night in our brushmobile).
Art Dog, 1998 winner of Vermont's Red Clover Award for illustration, was a great text to work with. The action-packed story chronicles the life of Arthur Dog, guard at Dogopolis Museum of Art and fan of Leonardo Dog Vinci. Arthur leads a quiet life--except when the moon is full. Then, his eyes grow bright and his fur seems to glisten... and soon he is out on the streets painting secret masterpieces: lightning slashes, glowing splashes and monsters ten stories high. No one knows who the mysterious Art Dog is... until the night when "Brrringggg!" the museum alarm goes off, and Arthur finds himself in the middle of a heist of the Mona Woofa.
Author/illustrator Thacher Hurd has created an action-packed story that offers a canine view of many artistic masterpieces: Wood's American Gothic, Matisse's Dance of Life and Jazz, Vermeer's Girl with Turban, Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, da Vinci's Mona Lisa and others.