
TK-351: William H. Johnson
Season 3 Episode 282 | 14m 9sVideo has Closed Captions
Join Mrs. Readwright at Camp Discovery!
Transitional Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Readwright, welcomes students back to Camp Discovery, a fun learning space packed with reading adventures & fun games!
Reading Explorers is a local public television program presented by Valley PBS

TK-351: William H. Johnson
Season 3 Episode 282 | 14m 9sVideo has Closed Captions
Transitional Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Readwright, welcomes students back to Camp Discovery, a fun learning space packed with reading adventures & fun games!
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(upbeat music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (upbeat music) - Hello, early learners?
It's me, Mrs. Readwright, I wanna welcome you back to the art room.
You know for 26 days in a row, we've been talking about the letters in the alphabet and the sounds they make.
And I made up little rhymes to go with each one.
So today we're going to do a song, a different song for our hello song, and it's called "Let's Make Some Noise."
And I brought all of my instruments.
Well, a box of some instruments, I left some over on the other side too.
And I thought it would be fun to do some, "Let's Make Some Noise" and it goes like this, ♪ Let's make some noise, we girls and boys ♪ ♪ We've got a voice so let's make some noise.
♪ So if you want to just use your hands and you can use those as your percussion or you can pat on your legs or tap on your table.
But if you have people sleeping in your house remember to keep it low.
This one is made of all kinds of wood and each one is a different height.
So each one makes a different sound, listen.
But listen to this.
So I'll say, ♪ Let's make some noise, we girls and boy ♪ ♪ We've got a voice, so let's make some noise.
♪ That's our hello song this week, so you can help me sing it.
And usually we'll sing it through twice.
But today, since we have a big project ahead with William Henry Johnson, I want to make sure that we get started right away.
And we're talking about the letters of the alphabet, and when we left, we finished with T. Now, today is the letter U, but let's sing the song, ♪ A, B, C, D, E of art.
♪ ♪ That's the way that we will start ♪ ♪ U for umbrella, violin for V ♪ ♪ W for window, we can see ♪ ♪ X is for Xs, Y yarn squiggles for me ♪ ♪ Warhol zebra ends the alphabet with Z ♪ So letter U, now here's William Henry Johnson.
We met him before, we learned about him and that his artwork was very childlike and he is going to do our artwork, that's the umbrella.
And you can see it's not a rain umbrella and it's not an umbrella that you would walk with as a parasol.
It is an umbrella for this cart.
Now, by the of it you can see lots of children are gathered around and even some are coming over.
And here is the person who is the sales person and you know what he's selling?
It starts with the letter I, it's ice cream.
And the name of this painting is children at the ice cream stand.
And this is the rhyme U for umbrella.
Some umbrella, shade us and others so rain won't land.
Johnson painted this one to shade the ice cream stand.
You know, you would want shade there because if you're buying ice cream it's probably when the weather is warm.
So the man who sells the ice cream is under that umbrella.
And I thought we could do a mixed media today.
So what I want to do, is first I'm going to make the buildings in the background 'cause he's got it in a city and it looks like the key for a basketball court.
So I'm going to use pink paper, I'm going to paste on some glue buildings.
I'm going to make the brown ground that looks like it's for that basketball game, and then I'll make the umbrella.
Then I'll start adding more people.
Now that project is big.
So you know I won't finish it today but I'll get it started.
And talking about projects, look at last week, remember P was for puppets, S was for sunflowers, R was for roses, T was for trees, and Q was for queen.
So I took those projects home that I only got started here and I finished them because it's important to finish anything you begin.
But sometimes I put projects on the back burner, 'cause I think, oh, that one I'm just not loving yet.
So I leave it there in my portfolio, and you know, I keep my portfolio handy to keep my work in so it's not left around where someone might damage it.
'Cause there's nothing more disappointing than doing your artwork, leaving it out to dry and somebody younger gets it and paints on it or accidentally steps on it, or something happens to it.
So make sure that you are responsible for your work and keep it in a safe place.
Same with all your materials that you use.
All right, let me set things aside.
I'll get out my table, and show you what I have on my suitcase.
Let me pull this suitcase over a little bit.
I told you I would start with pink paper in the blue, so I have everything down here.
Down here also, I picked two of my favorite colors to use as my umbrella and I have the colors of people's skin.
So let's see, I'm going to start with a full sheet of pink paper, and I cut this brown paper and I got it started cutting so you wouldn't have to watch me cut the whole way.
And I have now the brown ground that made me think it was a basketball court.
And I'm going to put that at the lower of by project.
Remember to get around the edges and especially in the corners.
So I'm gonna put this at the bottom for you it looks like the top because I'm looking at it but it goes like this, so yours will look like this to you.
Now, you know, the blue is going to be the building, so I made it a good distance because as I was looking at William Johnson's, I thought he didn't make the buildings go all the way across and I like to sometimes follow what they have done.
I can see I didn't get my corner glued very well.
I think I'm gonna bring down this picture so that I can use it as my inspiration.
All right, now we know that buildings, I could draw each one and glue a building, glue a building, glue a building, but what I think I'll do is use my colored pencil or just a regular pencil, you decide.
And I'm gonna think, all right, the building is going to go there, so I'm gonna have a medium building, a taller building, each one that's next door to each other, I'm gonna do a little different size.
Now the buildings are not the most important part of this picture you'll see, they're just in the background.
So I'm not going to add too much detail to them to make them be so prominent and important in the picture, but, I'm going to cut them.
Now, I'm going to show you my trick when I get to a place where it's hard to come turn my scissors I just start in from the other way and meet it and cut it off.
Same with this part, this building's going to be shorter, so I go down to where I want it to go, and then I can go across because it just is hard to get your scissors to turn.
You notice that I'm keeping my rule about keeping my thumb on top and my fingers underneath, and keeping my scissors pointed away from me because scissors safety is super important.
If your family seizing you using your scissors in a way that isn't safe they'll say you're not old enough to use scissors, and you think, wait a minute, I know how, what was I doing?
And you think, okay, I'm not gonna do that anymore, that wasn't safe.
Now on his buildings, he just did some crisscross windows all start these just so you get the idea of what I'm doing and then you can do that too.
And I think I'll make it the lines between the buildings a little darker, then I'll cut it off, glue it on my pink paper, and get on to the next part so you'll see.
For me it's easier to cut something where I have folded it and it makes a little straighter.
So I look at my edges and I do this, I think, oh, that's gonna be good.
So the fold line is where I can cut.
Otherwise my scissors might not be able to follow, and I've been cutting a lot long time.
I've been doing artwork for a long time.
I think I got my first pair of scissors when I gotten out of the hospital and my neighbors had gone away for 30 days and they brought me a whole basket full of 30 things to do while they were gone.
Because in those days when I was out of the hospital they made you stay in your bed for 30 days to get your body strong again.
So I learned to do a lot of things in those 30 days, my mama taught me to read, I did a lot of great things.
Oh, I better slide it under here.
Oh, you can just go on the background, I'll put it on top.
Now, the next important part I need to do is my umbrella.
And I told you I picked two colors that I think look beautiful together.
Magenta and orange, William Johnson made his orange and yellow, but I want magenta.
Now, I'm a girl who just cuts things but I know that sometimes children get nervous about it.
So, I'm gonna use my pencil and draw a half circle.
Yep, I think that's gonna be a good size.
Might need it a little smaller but I'm cutting out both of them at the same time because then I can cut the little wedges of the pie to fit on this spot and it'll be just the right beginning.
So, I think I'll make the magenta stand out here and I'm going to cut out pieces.
I'm going to cut this one up toward the center and I'll just glue it right on.
I won't even wait to measure it and see how it looks.
I'm going to put it on here, and get it close to the edge, so, I didn't, so I have to pick it up and put it back on.
Move it down a little bit, there, that looks pretty good.
Now I'm gonna do the other side and do that a wedge and put it on the other side.
Putting it, let me check it and see if I've got the right side.
Yes, and then always check when you're cutting out something that's a shape because you might have it backwards.
I'll put it on the edge, put it up there.
I think there's room put one more little stripe in the middle, so what I'll do, is take it right out of the middle of this.
Look, I'm gonna cut a little wedge of that off, and cut a little wedge of that off.
And it makes it kind of like a little rocket shape kind of.
Let me move these scraps out of the way so I don't put the wrong one on my umbrella.
Oh, I think I did a good job.
I was careful when I was doing my cutting.
So mine has three stripes, whose has four?
Are we having to copy exactly what the artist is doing?
No, we don't.
As a matter of fact, we really don't want to.
I didn't really meet it very well there, so you know what I do when I have a little extra paper that sticking off, let's trim it a little bit.
And his is just a little curve on the bottom, I like that idea rather than the umbrella kind where the water has to run down the pieces of the umbrella and off to the ground.
So now I'm going to figure out where do I want my umbrella?
I really want it right in the middle.
Boys and girls, you see this?
We really just got started, but yet let me tell you what I'm doing after this.
I'm going to add the people, then I'll make the umbrella have the stand part.
I'll put wheels on there and the people I can either draw or I can cut and paste.
You can decide, but here is the beginning of our background of our picture.
And so it has the buildings, it has the umbrella.
Now I just need to add the cart and you can look this up because it's children at the ice cream stand.
Now the song we're singing goodbye to is a goodbye see you everyone.
Oh no, I think that I will do that, ready?
♪ Goodbye, see you next time everyone ♪ ♪ Goodbye, see you next time everyone ♪ ♪ Goodbye to you, goodbye to you ♪ ♪ Goodbye to you, goodbye to me ♪ ♪ Goodbye see you next time everyone ♪ Tomorrow is letter V where we meet Mark Chagall, so bring white paper and blue paper.
I'm making some violins and some cellos, so you can bring brown paper, scissors, glue, I'm using pastels and any other coloring tools.
Boys and girls, I will see you tomorrow when we'll meet Mark Chagall and the letter V. Thanks for joining me today, bye bye.
(upbeat music) ♪ Good morning to a brand new day ♪ ♪ Time to learn and games to play ♪ ♪ Learning things is so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning is good for everyone ♪ (upbeat music)
Reading Explorers is a local public television program presented by Valley PBS