♪ 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 ♪ (cheerful music) (playful music) - Hello, early learners.

Welcome to the art room.

It's me, Mrs. Readwright.

I wanna welcome you back to our week of Faith Ringgold.

And we remember that she is a painter, an artist that does fabric work.

Well, let's sing about her and maybe that way we can remember what she does.

♪ Faith Ringgold's a talented artist ♪ ♪ She paints story quilts ♪ ♪ And writes books ♪ ♪ She creates soft sculptures ♪ ♪ Makes masks and art prints ♪ ♪ Join me as we take a good look ♪ Let's sing our hello song, and then we'll go right onto the facts about Faith.

It starts at, ♪ Hello, nice to see you, everyone ♪ ♪ Hello, nice to see you, everyone ♪ ♪ Hello to you ♪ ♪ Hello to you ♪ ♪ Hello to you ♪ ♪ Hello to me ♪ ♪ Hello, nice to see you, everyone.

♪ The things I wanna tell you about Faith Ringgold are these, she had a sister and a brother, and she also made a painting called "Brother And Sister".

And I have it here on the chart.

And I also have a new picture of Faith.

Here she is, with again, the Kente cloth wrapping around her hair and her African style clothing, and always her big, fancy jewelry.

Let's skip over Cassie Lightfoot and her brother Bebe for a minute to look at this.

Because when Faith wanted to be an artist, just like Georgia O'Keeffe, women were not allowed to be artists.

They could be an art teacher, but they were not allowed to be artists.

And she just thought that wasn't right.

So, from the time she was a young woman, she said, women can do the same things.

Why aren't we allowed?

And she saw a man coming out of her college and she saw no women going in and out, so she and her friends decided to make a stand.

And they said, women should be allowed to be artists and we will be artists.

So, she started doing art.

But when she went to art school, they told her, copy all the other artists, do what they do, paint the way they do, draw the way they do, and she did it.

Because they know if you copy someone else's work, you learn some good strategies and techniques on how make it look really good.

But then once you learn how to put things in order and how to stack things and how to use paints, and how to use the pastels in a good way, then you can do it off on your own with your own spin.

But then she was doing all the art they did, so all of her people were white people.

And that's what she did with this art.

She made a brother and a sister look like peach-colored people.

And so, that was the doll that looked like the people, and she did that artwork.

Well, the reason I'm showing it today, is because we're going to do a "Brother And Sister" in our artwork today.

Maybe you'll make the girl flying over the bridge, or maybe you'll make the boy.

So, these are made up people, Cassie and Bebe.

They're in her story of "Tar Beach".

And she tells the story how they're lying there, and they decide to fly over the bridge.

And remember her saying, "If one can, anyone can.

"All you gotta do is fly."

And what that means is, if you see that someone is able to do something, just by practicing and trying it yourself, good things will happen, and you can do it too.

And it says, "All you gotta do is fly."

It means all you have to do is give it a try.

And that's what we've been doing with our art.

You think our art can't make that.

Well, yes, you can, you just have to try.

So, let's take a look now at Cassie and Bebe.

When we make their clothes, I'm going to make my Cassie, and I'm going to use some paper that I got out of magazines that I used back when we were doing Grant Wood and the snowman that was dressed in clothes.

I saved all those magazines papers because I thought, I'll need those one day.

And Bebe, her brother, has on a striped shirt and little short overalls.

And Cassie's dress has a big bow in the back.

And I think I'm going to make mine look like that but you can make yours look however you want.

You just have to think of things and how the shape they are.

So, you see her dress is cut in half by the ribbon, but this is just a triangle, on a little rectangle with two rectangle sleeves.

But we have to glue the sleeves rather than laying them down by her sides, like we do on many paintings, we're going to lift them up and put them next to her face, flying over the bridge.

Oh, they have a lot more lights on theirs, maybe I need to put more lights on mine.

Hmm.

I have to figure that out.

All right, boys and girls.

So, let me get my little tabletop up here, and we'll get started with the art.

Put my pointer stick there.

Get this tabletop up here.

I'm gonna need some glue, glue sticks, scissors and all this paper.

Remember I told you, bring some multicultural paper, because in my pack of paper was this lighter brown, this medium brown and a darker brown.

And I'm gonna put my skin next to it and see which one I think is most like mine.

I think I'm this medium brown.

Now, my skin is medium brown because my grandma and grandpa were Native Americans or Indians.

And they lived near the Pit River, they were Pit River Indians.

And so their skin, to protect them from the weather, was always a little browner.

So, I'm going to think about how big this is going to be, flying over the bridge.

Let me bring my bridge back, and I'll think, well, her head should be about the size of a quarter.

So, let me set this up here, get my scissors.

And I think, oh, about the size of a quarter.

Now, remember how I taught you, when you're making a round face on a snowman or a person, you just get your square and you round it out.

I'm going to make my head more like an egg shape because I'm not making Cassie like a snowman.

Is that big enough?

Probably too big, but I kind of like it bigger so we can see.

I'm going to go through my magazine papers and look, see, oh, wouldn't this one be the pretty for a good dress?

It has some lilies on it.

Let me look a little longer and see if that's what I like.

And while I'm looking, I will look for what kind of bow I want to put on.

Oh, this girl has some.

Well, those look like the windows of a bridge.

Oh, I'll leave that out because I might put those as a window on the bridge.

Ooh!

This might be a nice bow.

Let me see what color was my dress.

Oh, here.

Okay.

Oh, I cut out these pieces of rice because I thought they might be good someday for something.

Let me see.

Are you looking through magazines and getting out paper?

Ooh, this will be good because it's a dark blue.

Okay.

So.

I am going to make a dress.

Now, I have been cutting out paper a long time.

I have been drawing and making art a long time.

So, I can think, I don't need to draw a triangle and cut it out.

But if you need to, I'm going to show you how.

I find the corner of my paper and I go up.

And I find the corner of the rest of that color and I go up.

I think, okay, that's good.

But if you don't need the pencil, don't use it.

I'm going up here like this, and over, and going up, and stopping.

And thinking, is that going to be a big enough dress?

It might be too big.

I'm gonna cut off a little bit of it.

You just keep measuring, placing it and replacing it.

Okay.

That'll be the good skirt part.

I'm going to use two rectangles of the paper for her sleeves.

So, I find another place that has a lot of the color, and I'll do this.

And I hold it up next to it and say, is that the middle part of the dress?

Pretty good.

So, I'll cut that part of the body, and see, does that rectangle fit with her head?

Pretty good.

Maybe a little too wide, but that's okay.

I can fix that.

Then I'm gonna make my two rectangles for the sleeves.

And you know what I like to do.

Let me make sure they're lined up.

If you wanna do one at a time, that's safest, but I'm still gonna cut mine around.

Remember I cut the round?

Let me set it here so you can see.

I cut the round top.

(clears throat) Excuse me.

To show where the shoulder is.

So, I'm gonna make it a little narrower, because it makes her look like she's been lifting weights and has such big arms.

I don't need that for my Cassie.

And I'm making her arms go over her head to fly.

Now, I'm going to go back, and put this forward.

Find that piece of fabric that I wanna do for her bow.

Maybe I'll just use white like they did.

And I use just this plain white bottom part of the paper where the design was.

I'm gonna put a ribbon, and a second ribbon, and a piece for her waist.

So, I can do this and go across.

Oh, yeah, that'll be good.

Okay.

When I move it all over here, that will work out.

Now I'm going to cut her arms to go over her head.

And we know that our arms are just two rectangles.

I'm gonna leave a part for her hands.

Let me see how far up.

Oh, that's so long, Mrs. Readwright, she doesn't have giant arms like a monkey.

I have my little rectangle.

I'm folding it in half.

And I'm going to cut.

And it's kind of going to look like a mitten at first.

I put my thumb out, just like I taught you, because the thumb faces the body, go around the hand and go down.

I think that will be good.

Will it?

Thumb in.

Thumb in.

Yes, it goes great!

I might have to glue it later.

I can see this has taken me a little bit of time.

I'm not sure if I will have time to glue this all down.

But in this picture, because they are lying on the rooftop on a mattress, they don't wear any shoes.

Because you know you don't wanna get on your bed with your shoes on, because what that does is make your sheets all dirty.

So, I'm cutting up here, putting her legs.

And I just am making her leg go down.

And her foot is like a little egg shape, kind of egg shape like her legs, or like her head was.

And I'll put this leg up here, and this leg up here.

I think I have time to do this part.

But then I know I need to add some hair to her.

Oh, my goodness!

One of my magazine papers has some good hair.

This is perfect.

Cassie has two braids that kind of go out from her head, so I think I will make two braids on mine too.

Just two pieces.

I'll make them rectangles later.

Oh, I'm so happy I saw that hair piece.

If you don't have hair, I would just use darker brown paper for her hair.

I could put it off to the side like this and like this.

Oh, goodness.

And she's looking down, so I'm gonna have to make her hair go back.

She wants to look down at the bridge.

So, when I glue this all together, and put it up in the sky, I might put a little nose on her and make sure that she has a way to look down at all the buildings below.

All right, boys and girls.

Let me tell you about tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we're going to be making a sunflower quilt.

It's a paper quilt made with sunflowers.

So, bring white paper and a pencil, a ruler if you have it, coloring tools, watercolors or pastels or crayons.

And we will meet back here and we will make the sunflower quilt.

So, let's sing our goodbye song.

♪ 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 ♪ (cheerful 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 ♪ (cheerful music)