ALPS is Brimming with Art

Walking through the halls of Alpine Lakes Elementary (ALPS), one is greeted by art everywhere, whimsical, and bright. The paintings, drawings and paper art are the students’ creations under the guidance of Amber Zimmerman, an artist and teacher who works with every class on a weekly basis. Zimmerman gets to teach sequential art lessons and share her passion thanks to the Youth Arts Initiative. This initiative is supported by the Methow Arts Alliance and funded by the Icicle Fund in a tiered format, so each year, the school district takes on a bit more of the costs. Recently, a class of fifth graders was having an art class in the room that used to be a computer lab and now is dedicated to art. They were finishing up desert landscapes modeled after art by Ines Alvidres, a contemporary Hispanic artist. Alvidres’ work emphasized vibrant colors and fractured, abstract images of flowers, birds and landscapes, somewhat like stained glass windows. Alvidres paints primarily with acrylics, and she stated on her website, “During the process of each painting, dozens of colors develop, the colors choose me in the moment. I may put yellow and blue together and see how many greens I can make.”

Watercolor markers made a worthy, inexpensive substitution for the students. They were given the broad guidelines of adding a foreground, middle ground and background. Once the fifth graders drew each layer, they painted with water to saturate every part of the paper with color. The final step was to distinguish the layers with metallic marker lines. The resulting pictures showed a range of desert sunset hues.

The students were able to jump right into the next, more free-form project, which was to use chalk pastels to draw a “floozle,” an imaginary creature that takes up the whole of a piece of black paper. Zimmerman showed artist Lance Cardinal’s examples, which looked like fuzzy aliens or friendly monsters. The class discussed how colors can be blended and a color on top of another color can add texture. Zimmerman said it’s very helpful to be building on concepts that the students learned last year. In this way, she can continually grow their skills. Curriculum, like for these projects, is developed by Zimmerman herself. “I use prior knowledge and a variety of resources to incorporate mediums, styles, and meet state standards,” she said.

There wasn’t much hesitation as the kids reached for the color of chalk they wanted and started to bring the mind’s image to life on the black paper in front of them. One student, displaying his floozle with two fuzzy tree trunks for legs and big inquisitive eyes, said, “It’s not what I expected!” adding that he had a starting idea, but also let the floozle grow as he was sketching.

Success is due because Zimmerman models creating art with a calm and exploratory style that helps the students try new things with curiosity and lack of judgment. When she’s not busy with prep and teaching, she’s doing her student teaching for a Master’s in Teaching under the mentorship of Cascade High School art teacher Teara Dillon.

ALPS is a more colorful, beautiful place thanks to Amber Zimmerman and the funding of art lessons all school year long.