Thanks for joining us today. Last time we were here we discussed Romare Bearden.
In this latest video from Golden Road Arts, Barbara Mason discusses the recent Arts Day at Ladd Acres Elementary School. Take a look at some of the drawings and fish printing designs the children created, and hear Barbara’s thoughts on the importance of art education.
Arts Day at Ladd Acres Elementary School Video
See sketches of faces and dinosaurs, along with unique fish printing designs, that were created by the 4th graders at Ladd Acres Elementary School.
Scroll to the bottom and view some images from Arts Day in Hillsboro.
Learn About the History of Fish Printing in Japan and the Benefits of Art Education
Read along using the video transcript below to learn about Arts Day and the power of art in the curriculum.
Golden Road Visits “Arts Day” at Ladd Acres Elementary
I’m Barbara Mason and I’m an artist. My own experiences in creating art with children in elementary schools has always inspired me. It’s very powerful. Art isn’t just a fun thing it’s a
way of developing your ability to move forward in life in a productive way. We offer support to
educators who are trying their best not to lose sight of the necessity of art education. We know it’s a documented fact that children sort who have art in their curriculum do better in all their core subjects.
We don’t have any art specialists in Hillsboro schools so there’s no art in the elementary schools on an everyday basis. They have the occasional artist that comes in but they don’t have art every week like schools did when I was growing up.
So when I asked the principal at Ladd Acres what the kids would like to do I knew we
were going to do the fish printing because they were actually studying the salmon migration.
But when I said well what would the 4th graders like to do and she apparently asked them and they wanted to do drawing and I thought that was pretty interesting for 4th graders to
want to learn how to draw.
So we started out with dinosaurs and then I said well is there anything else you wanna learn to draw and they wanted to learn to draw people. And so we started with faces and then we went on to draw the bodies showing how you use ovals and circles. And some of them really did amazingly well, the ones that really wanted to do it did a fine job.
So fish printing is it has a long history in the art world and also in Japan. It came from Japan, it’s called Gyotaku, and it was a way to print your fish so you could prove the size of it and probably how big they were just like our fish stories, and also, you could then eat the fish afterward, where you know if you print the fish, it’s still a good fish, you can still eat it. And it’s not that easy to use real fish, especially on an ongoing basis with lots of kids and so we have rubber fish and they are exact replicas of real fish and they just print beautifully.
Art has an amazing effect on kids. Kids need art in their curriculum. It’s a proven fact that kids that have art in their curriculum that they do better in all their core subjects. Art is a great learning tool and to not have it in your curriculum I think is very sad and I’m all for getting art back into our schools.
Oregon Art Events With Golden Road Arts
Would you like Golden Road Arts to host an art event at your school? Barbara Mason can provide fun and interactive in-person art lessons for schools near the Hillsboro area. To discuss an art event, call (503) 718-7097.
You can also help us provide free in-person and online lessons by making a donation or purchasing from our online art gallery. Golden Road Arts is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
