Picturing America for Public Libraries

We were so excited to receive this grant. I am using several of the pictures each week in an art camp for 7-12 year olds. We have mounted the prints in poster frames (takes a bit of trimming) so they do not bend and have 3-4 each day to view and discuss along with similar types of art. We follow with projects of that theme.

The favorites so far are the Brooklyn bridge pictures and the Tiffany window plus the pictures by Cole and Albert Bierstadt. We went on to explore exhibits in art galleries around the world via the internet and pulled books from both our adult and youth collections for them to look at or check out. The kids have enjoyed the background information on some of the pictures quite a lot. We added magnifying glasses to our supplies so we could take a closer look at some of the detail in the pictures after using this tool on the computerized pictures.

We will be hanging 6-8 at a time in the library starting next month and offering a painting class with Audubon's flamingo as inspiration.