Masters inspire student artists
by The Republican Newsroom Sunday December 14, 2008, 2:24 PM
Fort River Elementary School students pose with examples of their "portrait and self-portrait" project on display in the hallway of their school in Amherst. They are from left, Hamza S. Awaisi, 12, Matthew J. Cullen, 11, Nina D.E. Maroudas, 11, and Lilly Oh, 12, all of Amherst.By DIANE LEDERMAN dlederman@repub.com
AMHERST - In her self-portrait, 11-year-old Nina D.E. Maroudas sits surrounded by white calla lilies just as the unknown peasant woman did in Diego Rivera's "El Venedor de Alcatraces."
Hamza S. Awaisi, 12, is sitting in a chair posing as Pere Tanguy, the painting called "Portrait of Pere Tanguy" by Vincent Van Gogh.
These are just two of the 82 self-portraits on display at the Fort River Elementary School, acrylic paintings by the sixth-grade students in Teri P. Magner's art classes. The exhibit will be on display until mid-January.
During the summer, Magner was given a private tour of artist Kehinde Wiley's art work on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., by a former Fort River student Brooke M. Steinhauser, who was an intern then.
Wiley had juxtaposed contemporary portraits of black hip-hop artists in the style of historical paintings. For example, he depicted rapper Ice T as Napoleon on his throne. Seeing his work, Magner knew that her art students would be inspired.
So earlier this year, she cut out more than 200 portraits and self-portraits painted by a range of artists and allowed her students to choose one that they liked to use for their own portrait.
First they drew the portrait on the canvas. Then they went to work painting.
They had to learn to mix colors to replicate those in the paintings they were copying and also learned to paint from the furthest point in the back to create a three-dimensional painting.
Surrounded by the art work, Magner said, "I'm blown away by this." The paintings far exceeded her expectations. "These students are brilliant," she said. "This was a lot to ask of them."
Maroudas said she had seen some of Rivera's paintings and liked them and liked the image of the woman amid the calla lilies. "It was hard. It was kind of easy (too.) ... You kind of make it your own. It was fun to get your picture in the place of this person."
Students painted everything but their faces and instead a photograph was inserted into the painting. That was to ease any intimidation the students might have felt, Magner said.
"Ms. Magner did a good job of teaching us," Maroudas said.
Lilly Oh, 12, was drawn to a Claude Monet painting depicting a woman in a long white dress peering out to sea. "I really like Monet's style. I really liked her dress," she said of what drew her to the work.
She liked the clouds which were hard to capture and the sky. "I love art," she said.
Magner said she pushed her students hard. "When creating, the process is not easy," she said.
Matthew J. Cullen, 11, liked the splattery color's of the Degas painting he worked form He said the skin tone of the man's hands in the painting was hard to match. But he loved to "see it just developing." He said the project was a lot of fun.
Link: http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/masters_inspire_student_artist.html
