Art program sets painting to music

The halls are alive . . . with the sound of art?

Newman Elementary students, teachers and parents came to the school for an art festival May 23 to celebrate students' work with a new art program offered at the school this year. Parents could take a walk through the school to see displays of the art their children have done during the school year as part of the program. Participants could also stop in the gym and make a "galaxy" out of watercolor and salt.

The art program is called the Sound of Color and was designed and developed by local artist Carole Helt. The principle behind the program is teaching children watercolor art techniques to music.

"It's to bring out the creativity and self-confidence of the individual," Helt said. "The program is based on developing the individual. When we teach, we're teaching the basics to bring that out. . . . It's taught to the beat of the music, so they paint with the beat of that music."

Pat Draper, a teacher at the school, wrote a $4,000 grant to bring the program to Newman. It was first taught at the school years ago in 1991, and every teacher was trained on how to teach it. However, many teachers at the school are new since then, so they didn't know about it.

Helt had several training sessions this year with the teachers before coming into their classes to model how to teach the program. When she came to teach, Helt spent 40-45 minutes in each classroom teaching students an art principle to classical music. She taught a maximum of six classes from any grade level on one visit. Artwork usually tied in with what students were learning in core curriculum.

For example, one third-grade and kindergarten class hatched baby chicks in an incubator in their classroom. That week's artwork consisted of drawing the chicks.

"They're doing something that wasn't taught with the Sound of Color but are using all the principles so that the art work becomes much more advanced," Helt said, speaking of the texture students gave the chicks to make them look soft.

Yvonne Robinson, a kindergarten teacher at the school, said participating in the program has had many positive effects on the children including an increase in art appreciation for fellow students' artwork.

"They walk down the halls, and it used to be cinder blocks, but now it's a community," she said.