Painting the Landscape

Harper Bruns, FMS seventh grader

 

Twenty middle students from across District 49 are honing their artistic talents as part of a Gifted Education after-school enrichment program this semester. During one particular class, the students looked at rugged landscape paintings of the American West by artist Albert Beirstadt. 

“We try to reach all of our areas of giftedness,” said Diane Neff, Coordinator of Gifted Education. “Most people don't understand that we have 14 areas of identification and only seven of them are considered academically gifted.  We have many students that are gifted in the talent areas, such as creativity, visual arts, dance, music, psychomotor abilities and more.  These students' needs have to be met as well as the academically gifted students.” 

The students meet in Falcon Middle School’s art room once a week. During this November class, paint brushes and watercolor paints were handed out. 

“This group is fun to teach because they learn so quickly,” said Kathryn Harmeyer, FMS art teacher. “They are all here because they are interested in art, so I only need to share instructions once and they will happily get to work. They are very motivated learners, and thus are very willing to try new art media and push through challenges.” 

Kathryn Harmeyer, FMS art teacher, leads the district classes. 

 

Harmeyer demonstrated landscape perspective using dark and light watercolors and challenged the students to create their own small watercolor painting while using only one color, but with many different shades. 

“Art is incredibly important in schools for a number of reasons,” Harmeyer said. “Art classes promote critical thinking, fine motor skills, and help improve self-efficacy in students. Art is a project-based setting, so students have a lot more independent work time. This creates an environment that allows children to create and maintain friendships, which fosters social development. All of these things are incredibly important at the middle school developmental level.” 

The students used a pencil to sketch out a landscape scene with mountains, hills, rivers, lakes and trees. Then they selected one paint color. They dipped the brush straight into the paint for the darkest shade. Then they added water for lighter shades. 

The students are enjoying the class which has a different art medium each week. 

Landon Kinkennon, FMS seventh grader

 

Landon Kinkennon, FMS seventh grader, said, “I took the class because I wanted to spend more time doing what I love. I really like spending time with my friends and all the stuff we are learning. The projects are enjoyable.” 

“I love art and it is my career focus after college,” said FMS eighth grader Aria Terrell. “I like how Ms. Harmeyer teaches us about the different people from history whenever she is showing us art.” 

 

Aria Terrell, FMS eighth grader

 

“I want to get better at art because I’ve been doing it since I was two,” said Harper Bruns, FMS seventh grader. “I like the different opportunities and the smaller class size. I really liked working with clay, so I liked making the clay pumpkins and ghosts last week.”

Harmeyer said, “Teaching a gifted program means that students will pick up the skills and vocabulary incredibly fast. More of my focus in this program is supporting students and trying to get them to step outside of the box, or learn to think more abstractly.”