It begins with a dot: A journey for knowledge about lines
Source/Author: Takeya Trayer, ES Studio Teacher
April 07, 2023
JK students in The Experiential School of Tampa Bay investigated lines and used them to create self portraits.
Lines are alive. They skip, twirl and jump. Combined lines support, keep things in, out or separated. Lines can wrap around feelings, create music or movements. Lines can be read and interpreted and used to communicate. Lines are alive - breathing life into art, which then breathes life into all of us.
JK classes read a book called “The Line” by Paula Bossio. It took the young Chargers on a line adventure. JK then explored their own lines through finger paint, sand, and black and white cut paper lines. The students were excited to come up with names for their different lines. They called them snake lines, squiggly lines, flat lines, long lines, and even cowboy lines!
To continue learning about lines, they danced a line. Some students got really creative and chose to make a crawling line, snake lines, jumping dotted lines and spirals or spinny lines.
They looked at art from a German artist named Paul Klee. Paul Klee said, “A line is a dot being taken for a walk.” They took some dots for walks and some decided to take their dots on wheels.
We are made of lines. Classes talked again about symmetry and faces generally being symmetrical. Students explored the lines on their faces with a piece of tracing paper over a photo headshot. When the photos were removed, it was interesting to see what parts of the portrait the children really focused on. Returning back to the self portraits, some chose to add more lines to represent themselves more accurately. They then used earth toned artist markers to add some color to the self portraits.
The portraits are currently hanging in the ES exploratorium. View some here.
The portraits are currently hanging in the ES exploratorium. View some here.
![JK on the Run [Photos]](/Images/1px.png?command_1=url&url_1=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.shorecrest.org/userfiles/shpsv2mvc/images/news-images/JKontherun.jpg&command_2=resize&height_2=85 "JK on the Run [Photos]")
