Art At Your Fingertips Projects

Art At Your Fingertips, a 44-year old outreach program of PVAC, reaches 7,000 students annually on the Palos Verdes Peninsula with additional partnerships in Title 1 Schools throughout Los Angeles County. Run completely by parent volunteers, AAYF’s paramount objective is to help every child feel comfortable using art as a means of communication and expression­.

The 2019-2020 AAYF participants include Montemalaga Elementary, St. John Fisher School, Cornerstone at Pedregal, Rolling Hills Country Day School, Point Vicente Elementary School, Silver Spur Elementary School, Dapplegray Elementary, Soleado Elementary, Rancho Vista Elementary, Vista Grande Elementary, Lunada Bay Elementary. Outreach Organizations: Richstone Family Center, The Center For Learning Unlimited, LINKS, Parnassus, Hawaiian Avenue Elementary, Mr. J’s Academy, Mira Catalina, Intermediate School Teachers, Peninsula Montessori.

NASA and the Art of the Cosmos

By Kathy Bauer

In this project students learned about the NASA Art Program established in 1962, and the importance of art in our culture to describe, document, and inspire. Students used a variety of techniques to apply oil pastels on black paper to mimic space, dust, planets, and stars.

Three Apples

By Suzanne Gibson

This painting project helped students understand how different color schemes affect spatial relationships. Inspired by Paul Cézanne’s still life paintings, students explored the elements of line, shape, and color, and used highlights and shadows to create their own still life painting with apples.

Repoussé Southbay

By Stephanie Kohler

Students learned about the ancient art of repoussé and how it is applied to contemporary Haitian metal work. Focusing on the elements of shape and color to create their images, they expressed ideas about the South Bay using metal tooling techniques to create a low relief design on metal foil.

Selfie of Sorts

By Robin Kiss

Drawing continuous lines with a black Sharpie, students created an abstract, expressive portrait inspired by the many styles of Pablo Picasso. Color was applied and blended with oil pastels while thinking about various color schemes. Cutting it out and standing it up transformed the artwork from 2D to 3D.

Light and Dark

By Marianne Coble

Ansel Adams’ black and white landscape photographs of Yosemite were the inspiration for this project. Developing observation skills while learning a variety of drawing techniques, students translated photographic images into a sketch enhanced with black water-soluble pencil and watercolor pencils.

Lunada Bay Elementary School Ceramics Residency

Under the direction of PVAC Teaching Artist Robin Bott, a twelve-week ceramics residency was enjoyed by all first graders at Lunada Bay Elementary School. Students completed a variety of projects and learned fundamental shaping, glazing and firing techniques. Palos Verdes Art Center would like to thank the Lunada Bay instructors for inviting us into their classroom and PTA for supporting this program.