Glebe Report

SCHOOL NEWS
Glebe Report February 6,1998 2 2
A2L'IW-unCentury Canadian art
BY MARK JOHNSTON AND
MELISSA TALIA, GR. 6
Mr. McLelland's Grade 6 class
at Mutchmor Public School did a
project on Canadian painting in
the 20th century. We studied
several works, and eventually
ended up choosing and reproducing
original works of art done
mainly by artists from the Group
of Seven.
Our class started out by
choosing the painting that we
wanted to reproduce. We then
found a good sample of the
painting to copy from and did a
very rough draft on draft paper in
coloured pencil. Next, using the
rough copy, we outlined the edges
of each shape and line in the
painting on a large piece of poster
paper in very light pencil. To
complete the painting, we took
paint according to the colour on
the rough draft and painted the
poster paper to look like the
original, using the pencil lines
that we had drawn.
Generally, the reproductions
that this class did were of quite
good quality, and, since several of
them were of the same painting,
one can compare them and see the
high points of each. A few were
not quite what they seemed to be:
for example, one boy reproduced
a fairly hard painting by A.Y.
Jackson called The Red Maple.
The whole time he was doing it he
insisted that it was nothing like
the original, and was just a mess
Valentine family breakfast
February 13
BY ELEANOR THOMAS
The Improvisation Olympics are
coming to Mutchmor in February.
The junior students will experience
the fun of improvising when
the drama group Salamander
Theatre comes to the school for
several days. Also in February,
students will get a different perspective
on the solar system when
an inflatable planetarium appears
in the gymnasium for a day. Finally,
the annual Mutchmor Reads
More event which promotes literacy
among the Mutchmor community
will take place from Feb.
23 to Mar. 6
of colour. In fact, this was exactly
what the original portrayed.
When the painting was framed
and put up in the hall, it did
really look like a mess of colour
and paint, but if one stepped back
-a few paces, it became less of a
mess, and looked exactly like a
red maple tree with a fast-flowing
river behind it, and in the background,
some rocks and low
shrubbery. This is just how the
original is, and so the boy was
pleased with his work in the end.
During the painting stage of the
project we took a trip to the National
Art Gallery to look at some
of the paintings we had chosen
and others by the Group of Seven
and other Canadian artists. We
all liked the trip because most of
us got to see our own paintings
and how they really looked, but of
course the originals looked better.
We did research and each of us
put together a brief original biography
on our painting's artist.
We also wrote a paragraph describing
a particular aspect of
our painting. We had to choose
from aspects like colour, shape,
value and others. Two examples
of these reports appear elsewhere
in the Mutchmor School News.
Our paintings and reports have
been put up in the corridors and
offices of Mutchmor School. Visitors
to the school should look for
them, because they are interesting
and beautiful to see.
For parents and teachers, the
second evening seminar o n
parenting issues sponsored by
the Mutchmor School Council will
feature Ottawa psychologist and
author Maggie Mamen. Dr. Mamen
will present her down-to-earth
ideas about family management,
as outlined in her recent book
Who's in Charge?
Students, parents and friends of
Mutchmor School are all invited
to the second annual Valentine
Family Breakfast, to be held on
Friday, February 13, from 7:45
a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in the school
gymnasi um.
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567-1251 200 First Avenue (at Bank)
Students from Mr. McLelland's Gr. 6 class display their reproductions
of paintings by 20th century Canadian artists. (Front) Melissa
Talia, Morgan Rowe, Gareth Thomas (Rear) Cici Ruoxi Zhu, Devin Pihlainen,
Edward May, Polly Lochhead. Photo by Eleanor Thomas.
Maligne Lake, Jasper Park by Lawren Harris
BY CHRIS HAUGLI, GR. 6
Lawren S. Harris was born in
1885. He came from a wealthy
Brantford family who were coowners
of the successful company
Massey-Harris. A religious man,
he spent four years in Europe
studying art and working as a
magazine illustrator. When he
returned to Toronto in 1908, he
became a founding member of the
Arts and Letters Club.
Harris painted Maligne Lake,
Jasper Park after a two-month
trip in 1924 with A.Y. Jackson to
Jasper Park, Alberta. After not
finding the scenery around their
The Tangled Garden by J.E.H. Macdonald
BY BRENDAN HENNESSY, GR. 6
J.E.H. Macdonald was born in
1873 in Durham, England. He
moved to Hamilton, Ontario in his
teens and studied for a short period
at the Hamilton Art School.
After graduation he moved to
Toronto and began working at
Grip Ltd. in 1895. Macdonald met
Lawren Harris at the Arts and
Letters Club, where they began
discussing how to make Canadian
art different. In 1916, Macdonald
exhibited The Tangled Garden at
the Ontario Society of Artists
show, and the critics shunned
him.
In the year of 1920 the
Group of Seven was officially
formed and from then until 1931
Group of Seven shows were held
annually. J.E.H. Macdonald be-
Fabulous felt art
BY JULIA DOERING AND
EMILY BERTRAND, GR. 6
This January Maggie Glossop
visited Mutchmor Public School.
She worked with the primary and
cabin inspiring enough, they went
to Maligne Lake attracted by its
mountains and pristine reflections.
The painting has a lot of
balance since the reflections on
the bottom half of the painting
are the same as the top half, just
upside-down. The two mountains
dominate the painting. One of
them is big and wide, while the
other is tall and pointy. Since
Harris was a religious man, in
some of his paintings, like Maligne
Lake, Jasper Park, you can
see dark landscape with some
bright light shining down on it
from an opening in the sky.
came the principal of the Ontario
Art College in 1932. He died four
years later.
Texture adds feeling to a picture.
Paint a flat picture and the
picture loses dimension. If you
could touch a painting, you could
feel lumps and wavy lines, which
would be considered texture.
J.E.H. Macdonald uses texture in
his painting, The Tangled Garden,
to make it truly look tangled. In
the front, where the sunflowers
are, he applies more paint to
make them look closer and in the
back he uses less paint to make
them look farther away. Feeling
the picture, you would find that
this makes the painting look and
feel more realistic, because of
texture.
junior students making interesting
and elaborate felt art. They
all looked fun and bright in their
own fantastic ways. Maggie Glossop
gave us a great new experience
in the way of art.
SUBWAY'
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Thursday to Saturday 10 am to 3 am
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