Portrait of a president
By Sue Higgins
tcurry@2messengerpostmedia.com

'The recent milestone he reached in becoming the first African-American president and his enormous political accomplishments seemed to have inspired all the students.'

- Teacher Regina Hill

INAUGURAL TRIBUTE: Nineteen students at Newark Middle School combined creative efforts to draw a portrait of President Barack Obama.

NEWARK: Larger than life, a pieced portrait of President Barack Obama, created by Regina Hills sixth-grade art class, graces Newark Middle School.

It started out as an 8-inch by- 8-inch likeness of Obam'as face. His image metamorphosed in size as students, utilizing a grid method for enlargement, increased its measurements until it exploded into a 5-foot-by-5- foot mural-size piece of art.

The grid divided the portrait into smaller sections so each student could draw a portion of Obama's face.

Madeline Shear drew the right eye and corner of his mouth. Mitchel DeWolf did the teeth. Marleah Cunningham handled the right earlobe. There were more than 150 squares to complete.

When all the pieces were put together, students could spot their own sections and commented on how well the sections matched up, said Hill. They were amazed to have been able to create something so huge.

Besides drawing and studying the principle of shape as they worked on the mural, students also added value shades of black and gray.

In graphite pencil on drawing paper, the project took a quarter-semester to complete.

The students worked very hard and were excited to see the finished product, said Hill.

'It looks really awesome,' Cunningham said. 'I was surprised that it looks like him. It really didn't look like anything when we were all drawing the separate sections.'

The students chose to represent an image of Obama because he is someone they thought had 'started a chain reaction,' Hill said. 'The recent milestone he reached in becoming the first African- American president and his enormous political accomplishments seemed to have inspired all the students.'

top of page

Copyright © 2009
Courier-Gazette, 613 S. Main St. Newark, N.Y. 14513 - 315-331-1000
All Rights Reserved