Imaginations Soar as Lincoln, East Students Engage in Art Exchange

“Fill the space! Touch the edge! Overlap!” Third-grade students at Lincoln Elementary School repeat this mantra as they work around the paint-spattered tables in the art room, layering outlines over backgrounds.

Along with learning the fundamentals of creating well-balanced art, these students are gaining hands-on experience in the crucial skills of teamwork, problem-solving and creative thinking.

Through a collaboration with high school students, the third grade art classes at Lincoln are creating paintings involving imaginary creatures.

“The result is a 2-D mixed media piece,” said Sherrill Knezel, the Lincoln art teacher. Working with a mixed media art class at Wauwatosa East High School, “Each student involved in the project prepares a background painting, mostly based on surface textures.”

The students at Lincoln and East then swap backgrounds, and create a fantastical creature on the background they select that matches, or inspires, their creature.

They create an outline drawing of their creature, and then send the painting back to the other class for further work. Knezel said the canvases will be exchanged as many times as possible before the end of the project, with each student getting to do all parts of the assignment.

Sometimes the students get unexpected results on the canvas from their high school counterpart. Knezel said that, when the paintings come back, the third-graders look at the paintings as a group, suggesting ways to resolve issues.

“They talk as a group to solve problems, coming up with creative solutions,” she said. This chance to critique the paintings helps the students develop critical thinking skills. “They talk about what works, what doesn’t work, what they’d do differently,” said Knezel.

Although her students are enthusiastic about the project, Knezel said some have trouble giving up control of their creature.

“For example, they'll worry, ‘What if it isn’t painted yellow?’” Knezel noted. “Elementary art is very personal, and they’re very attached.”

In one class, the students acknowledged these feelings of ownership by printing instructions to the East students on the backs of their canvases.

But for several students, the excitement of working with older kids overcomes the fear that the painting will be changed in a way that the third-grade artist won't like. Many expressed excitement over the creative steps that they imagine the older students will take.

“I think they’ll change it a bit, and add to it,” said Cady M. “It will be fun to see what they did, and then keep going.”

Monica C. is looking forward to seeing her painting again. Inspired by a pink background, she drew a butterfly. “I made a mistake, and drew fangs, and that made me think, ‘Oh, that should be a vampire butterfly,” she explained. She doesn’t know what to expect when she gets her canvas back.

Skye S., who drew a frog head with a human body, selected a “carnival background” to go with her creature. Despite having definite ideas about her creature’s backstory – “It’s a carnival supervisor who makes sure everything is going good.” – Skye said, “If it goes in a different direction, it’s OK. It will be a whole collage of styles.”

 The students will all get to meet each other and view the paintings at a gallery night planned for the end of the month.