STONE HEAD — Forty-one faces peek from the hallway of Van Buren Elementary School. As students file past to board their buses, these kids wave in the wind but stay inside.

The faces, painted on quilt squares, are those of Van Buren first-graders, and they’re part of an art installation coming together this school year.

Last May, Van Buren was the recipient of a $12,000 grant, made possible by the Brown County Art Guild and the state of Indiana.

Each month this semester, both first-grade classes are experiencing different types of art activities under the guidance of local artists Amanda Mathis and Cheri Platter.

The quilt was the October-November project, Platter said.

Earlier this fall, the first-graders traveled to T.C. Steele State Historic Site in Belmont, where one of Brown County’s most well-known painters was inspired by the sweeping landscape. They sat on the rolling lawn and drew whatever they saw — trees, buildings, flagstones, flowers — with watercolor pencils, Platter said. Later, they learned how to blend them into paintings with water.

When they started to work on their quilt project, Platter, whose specialty is jewelry, brought in a silk scarf to show them how fabric could be turned into art. They all touched the silk and talked about how it’s made by insects.

This week, the students will learn how to draw bodies using circles and ovals to get the proportions, Mathis said. Later in December, they’ll use that knowledge to do a printmaking project, drawing eagles and the Statue of Liberty.

In January, they’ll use clay to form leaves for a final project that may end up hanging in the hall, Mathis said. In February, they’ll be making jewelry.

These are extra art experiences, ones the students would not have received in their regular art classes one hour a week. With the exception of the field trip, all activities have been conducted in their first-grade classroom, Platter said.

The grant that funded them came from the Indiana Arts Commission’s PACE program, begun in 2014 to establish long-term, in-depth and sustainable partnerships between artists and elementary schools.

Eligible schools had to have a free or reduced-price lunch rate of at least 55 percent and have performed below the state average passing rate on the spring 2015 ISTEP test, according to the group’s website.

Mathis said one part of the program that she really appreciates is tying the art activities back into the classroom curriculum — like teaching them to draw the Statue of Liberty when students are learning about their government.

Mathis, a veteran art teacher and substitute teacher, said art can even help students in other subjects.

“I’ve had children who are struggling, and when they’re painting, I say, ‘Let’s a write story and use your spelling words.’ When they realize that can use their passion for art to help them in other areas, I have goosebumps right now thinking about it,” she said.

In addition to being enrichment activities, the projects have served as foundational art lessons.

Not every Brown County school or grade level has a teacher dedicated just to art. At the elementaries and intermediate school, schools either share an art teacher or the art teacher also teaches other subjects, such as physical education, health, business or information technology.

In order to make a quilt square that looked like them, the Van Buren first-graders had to learn how to transfer a three-dimensional image — their face — into two-dimensional form.

“Drawing faces isn’t the easiest thing in the world,” Platter said. “We had to get them to look at themselves and figure out where their nose, eyes and ears go.”

The result was “amazing” for first-graders, who often draw legs coming out of their heads, Mathis said. “We got them all to not draw the triangle nose. You should have seen the number of children who had the light bulb go on when I said, ‘None of us has triangle noses.’”

Platter said the plan for the faces “quilt” right now is not to actually quilt it, unless someone volunteers to do that. The squares are tied together and hung more as a “flag” in the hallway, she said.

Teachers and the artists are talking about making a more permanent art installation by the end of the year, Platter said.

Mathis said if it were totally her choice, she’d love for the PACE grant program to continue next year. This school year’s activities will be reviewed at the end of the year by the grant committee.

“I’m glad that we seem to be embracing and exploring ways to bring even more art and connect it to the classroom curriculum, which, to me, is an easy thing to do and always enhances that whole learning experience,” Mathis said.

“That’s what makes me so excited about a program like this.”