![\"Gifted](\"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/IMG_3940-Salvador-Dali-The-Persistence-of-Memory.jpg\")
<\/a>The class bell rings again, signaling the end of the students\u2019 break. Shushing each other as school staff cue them to take their places, Monet, his water lilies and the rest of the gifted visual arts students set themselves for the next hour of tours.<\/p>\n
Picasso\u2019s cubist musicians raise their instruments. Van Gogh adjusts a bandage around his ears.\u00a0Munch resumes his frozen screaming expression. And the American Gothic farmer, with pitchfork in hand, flattens his smile to replicate the iconic scene.<\/p>\n
Like an experienced gallery guide, eighth-grader Haiden Daniels talks and walks backward as he leads museum visitors to meet their first artist \u2013 Georgia O\u2019Keeffe.<\/p>\n Along the way,\u00a0the group passes Mexican painter Frida Kahlo,\u00a0pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and installation artist Sandy Skoglund, whose Cheez-Doodle covered chair and<\/em> student in The Cocktail Party<\/em> was a popular attraction.<\/p>\n Daniels assures his guests they may circle back to view any piece of art in the living exhibit after the initial tour.<\/p>\n Dispatching more student guides to lead visitors through the museum is Gifted Visual Arts teacher Jessica Provow. It was her idea to have students replicate famous works of art in wearable form, similar to an event Provow helped coordinate as an art education student at Longwood University.<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked with the local museum in Farmville,\u201d Provow explained, \u201cand we brought artists and art educators together to create living works of art. It was a big gala event, so the whole community came.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar to the gala, Provow and her gifted visual arts colleagues Leah Krueger and Leigh Drake,\u00a0selected famous works of art for groups of students to study and recreate together. Group members had to collaborate and problem solve to bring their ideas to life and then assign roles for the live exhibit.<\/p>\n \u201cThey chose whether they wanted to be the artist, the docent or in the artwork,\u201d Provow said.\u00a0\u201cThey did all the research to embody that person and created their own scripts.\u201d<\/p>\n Every student assumed a role and spoke in character to museum visitors, demonstrating their knowledge of the artist, the work\u2019s history or the artistic technique.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were looking for a new way to teach the art history and aesthetics in our art theory units,\u201d Kreuger added. The student-centered approach is what helped Kreuger and her colleagues earn a $2,000 innovative learning grant from the Virginia Beach Education Foundation, underwritten by Deford Ltd., to fund this first-time project. \u201cBy placing students in this authentic learning situation, they must think like a museum curator as they decide what qualities are important to reflect in the art piece selected for the exhibit,\u201d Kreuger wrote in the grant application.<\/p>\n Kim Urch\u2019s seventh-grade daughter Abbey played the role of Georgia O\u2019Keeffe. As Abbey and her group members explained the history of and technique used in O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s work Oriental Poppies<\/em>, Kim took photographs of the art in action.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have been working on this project for weeks,\u201d Kim said.\u00a0\u201cAbbey learned more about Georgia O’Keeffe than just her artwork. She learned about her life and what motivated her. Then they had to work together to create an amazing artwork that would come alive.\u00a0It was impressive to see all of their preparation turned into an amazing display of their talents.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniels and his tour group bid farewell to Ms. O\u2019Keeffe.<\/p>\n Next stop? Paris.<\/p>\n There they find French artist Georges Seurat near the banks of the Seine River on a Sunday afternoon in the late 1800s.<\/p>\n Student docent Alex Riggenbach shared information about Seurat\u2019s life and his pointillism piece A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte<\/em>. \u201cLet\u2019s chat with George himself,\u201d transitions Riggenbach, and sixth-grader Bella Kane breaks her pose with a flip of her paint brush.<\/p>\n Speaking through a fake moustache and beard, Kane describes Seurat\u2019s pointillism technique in first person. Her accent is part French, part \u201cfancy,\u201d as described by fellow group member Jillian Atwood. Atwood is one of the French fair ladies in the piece, and her monologue is quickly interrupted by the artist himself who says, \u201cOh, let me add one more dot.\u201d<\/p>\n Kane taps a paintbrush to Atwood\u2019s face and says, in a French-fancy way, \u201cThere we go!\u201d<\/p>\n Atwood tries not to laugh and break character.<\/p>\n After their presentation to museum visitors,\u00a0Riggenbach described her group\u2019s work behind the scenes.\u00a0\u201cIt took us a month to complete this because we had to do a base color and then we had to dot the whole thing.\u201d Much less time than the two years (1884-1886) it took Seurat to complete his famous work.<\/p>\n \u201cI enjoyed learning about the dotting technique,\u201d said Kane. \u201cI think it\u2019s a really cool way to paint. It takes more time to process, but I think it makes it more special.\u201d<\/p>\n Atwood also appreciated Seurat\u2019s pointillism, especially for his time. \u201cI find it very innovative what he did because I don\u2019t think anybody in that time era had done that before,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Out of character, each student had something to share about what they learned.<\/p>\n \u201cHe painted it because he was on a walk with his friends and he saw the sunset,\u201d explained the student docent for Edvard Munch\u2019s The Scream<\/em>. \u201cHe felt so many emotions at once that he wanted to scream, so he decided to paint it instead.\u201d<\/p>\n The student featured in Lichenstein\u2019s comic strip art M-Maybe<\/em> learned that \u201che uses a lot of bright colors.\u201d\u00a0Bright red polka dots covered her face for her to blend in with the piece\u2019s background.<\/p>\n \u201cThe dull colors are mostly in the background because he is a pop artist.\u201d<\/p>\n Amaya Dinh, a blue character in Keith Haring\u2019s untitled contemporary work, learned she should have selected a different character in the piece. Unlike the other four characters, it was painted with arms outstretched above its head, a pose she had to hold to replicate Haring\u2019s work.<\/p>\n \u201cI should have been a red character,\u201d she said. \u201cMy arms hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>