On Friday, November 15, Dr. Bob vonHunke visited Fabius-Pompey Elementary School to share his artistic expertise with a first and fourth grade.  Dr. Bob is a retired art teacher from Fayetteville-Manlius who is an active, exhibiting artist.  He also happens to be the grandfather of F-P students Lein and Siriah Walser.  After showing some of his amazing acrylic paintings of scenes from as far away as China, a student asked how he creates a painting.  It was a perfect lead-in for him to share the artistic process, which begins with ideas and inspiration.  Dr. Bob takes many pictures and makes numerous sketches of places and things that catch his interest.  From these, he “roughs” out the elements on a canvas and begins to develop and refine them, resulting in a finished piece.  The students were captivated as he showed examples of the different stages.  As a culminating activity, the students were instructed on how to make a puffin using the numbers 4, 2, 3 and 9.  They were very excited as their puffins took shape and they added backgrounds and other elements to increase the interest of their work.  These were finished the following week and are now hanging in the first grade wing of the Elementary School.  Dr. Bob’s visit was a wonderful experience for the students, and we are all very grateful for his visit!
 
Jeffrey Sims, First Grade Teacher