BEGINNERS . . . Our portraits as a doll!

Drawn portrait by Elijah

Artists in Lower School are presenting their self-portraits in our art exhibition in Panther Hall gallery and Beginner artists are proud to have their artwork right there on the wall with all of their older friends! These drawings are wonderful and spontaneous depictions of how they perceive the world. It is an exciting discovery in self-expression and creative pride that begins as early as Beginner classes at Ranney School.

Can you picture the well known M&M cartoon character with his arms and legs coming out of the head of the round candy? You might see this same characterization in any child's drawing. As young artists perceive people around them, the face is the most important element, and everything (such as arms and legs) are simply extensions of the face. There might be a body between the head and the legs, but in their eyes, it is not as important to recognize or represent in their artwork.

To help our Beginners move forward beyond an M&M drawing, they drew their head and faces after practicing circle drawings, and then made an important decision about what color they would like their shirts to be. Creating a body with their color choice was just a matter of another circle in the portrait and then filling it in. Arms and legs are often single lines at this point in their creative development, but they were encouraged to have them extend out of their body and not their heads.

To show each artist how important their color choices were, I selected fabric to match the color the drawings were made in and I embroidered the faces exactly as they were created on paper. Creating a softie doll out of each drawing was like bringing the Beginner portraits to life! To see all of our Lower School portraits, make sure you stop by Panther Hall Gallery. The exhibit will be on through December. Enjoy this preview of our youngest artists . . .

Drawing by Ayan

Drawing by Emerson

Drawing by Amelie

Drawing by Arjun

Drawing by David

Drawing by Gianna

Drawing by Grant

Drawing by Henry

Drawing by Lachlan

Drawing by Logan

Drawing by Sareena

Drawing by Aaliya

Drawing by Sebastian

SECOND GRADE . . . Pop Art Portraits

Portrait by Valentina

Portrait by Claire

Portrait by Patrick

Portrait by Tyler

Second Graders finished their colorful Pop Art Portraits this week. We used different colors for each background and varied the colors for our hair, shirt and small designs. Choosing different colors for each of the four portraits imitates the style of Andy Warhol's popular silkscreen art during the 20th century.

It was fun to see how we would look with red hair, black hair, or even gray hair! By adjusting the color palette for each of our portraits, we learned how make unique and creative choices, not once but four times. Color can make such a difference in the appearance of any design. Our bright and colorful portraits prove that beautifully!

The inspiration for our project comes from the work of Andy Warhol, a well known Pop Artist from the 20th century. His art was a reaction to the sudden popularity of celebrities and mass produced items of that century, such as Coca Cola bottles and Campbell's Soup. He was also the one who came up with the expression, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Most of Warhol's images are done as multiple prints to reflect just how "popular" the image is to all of us. We did not see Marilyn Monroe once, we saw her over and over again in movies, on TV, and in magazines. Warhol's portrait of Marilyn reflects her fame and her popularity.

Andy Warhol created multiple images for his Pop Art prints using a popular printing technique. He designed only one version of each portrait he made, and then constructed a screen from that image so that he can print it many times. This process is called "silk screening." When you purchase a printed T-shirt from a store, chances are the printing was done this way. Each shirt looks exactly the same because they were all printed from the same screen.

Here is a screen that I made with the Ranney School logo. A very fine fabric (similar to silk) was stretched over a wooden frame and then coated with a film to seal off the holes in the fabric. Only the area that shows the Ranney logo is not coated. Fabric paint is then forced through the holes of the screen with a squeegee.

When the screen is lifted up, the shirt displays the printed logo.

Andy Warhol often used many colors with one screen and varied the colors from one print to the next. The images look identical, but the use of color makes them appear as separate works of art. By varying the markers we selected for our hair, shirt and background, we were be able to make our own version of a Pop Art portrait.
Here is a question for you . . . If Andy Warhol was still creating his Pop Art images, what very famous person do you think he might want to do a portrait of today?

Please log onto Artsonia, an online museum that Ranney School participates in and see all of our portraits. If you have not already registered to the site and you need the login information again, please contact me!  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Note to families . . .
    This art blog will be updated regularly with new posts sharing our daily activities in the art room and news about upcoming art exhibits. To respect the privacy of our students, names will always be limited to first name only and identifiable photos will never be accompanied with a name. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write in the comment box below or send me an email at blevine@ranneyschool.org. I would love to hear from you!
    In my class, students are given the chance to explore different materials and fun new techniques as they develop their signature style. Some young artists love to draw with a pencil, some like to paint on canvas or create images in a digital format, while others prefer working with clay and molding three-dimensional forms. In my classroom, we use a variety of materials allowing all artists to experiment and figure out which type of art they like the best. At Ranney School, we place a strong emphasis on originality and celebrate artistic differences, always nurturing and encouraging the imagination of every student.
     Remember to check out our display of finished artwork and student portfolios in the Ranney home page of Artsonia.com.  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

FIRST GRADE . . . Modern Mona Lisa!

Portrait by Amrita

Portrait by William

Portrait by Camila

Portrait by Paulie

As an introduction into the rich world of art history, first graders learned about the "Mona Lisa," painted by Leonardo da Vinci. To create our self-portraits, we drew our faces, shoulders and arms just like in the famous portrait by da Vinci, and colored them in with a color palette that best represents each of us.

In the "Mona Lisa," the subject of the painting is the portrait. The background is the area behind the subject, represented as a soft landscape that seems to be very far away.

To make the distinction between the subject and the background in our pictures, we created two separate works of art. The subject of our pictures is a portrait drawn with bright colors and fine details. The background was created as a landscape with watercolors in softer, more muted tones.

Here is how we did our project...
On one piece of drawing paper, we drew our portraits. To personalize them, we chose colors for our hair and eyes that best represent us. Then we added interesting details to the picture to tell a story about who we are in the portrait. As'ad is a construction worker and is wearing a hard hat on his head that says "Be careful!" Michaela loves animals and she added an adorable spotted puppy on her shirt. Once these were complete, the portraits were cut out of the white paper they were drawn on.

Portrait by As'ad

Portrait by Michaela

On a separate piece of paper, we painted our backgrounds. Using watercolors, we created a soft and colorful scene, letting the colors flow and blend together. Allie's paint flows across the page so beautifully creating movement in the water below and an impressive sunset sky. Scout painted ribbons of color forming a brilliant backdrop for any subject. Both of these watercolors could stand alone as beautiful works of art.

Background by Allie

Background by Scout

To see all of our Mona Lisa masterpieces, visit our home page on Artsonia.com and scroll through the list of exhibits to the first grade portraits.   http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

GRAPHIC ARTS . . . Shadow selfies!

Shadow by Dakota V., 5th grade

Shadow by Logan M., 5th grade

Shadow by John C., 5th grade

Shadow by Nico F., 5th grade

Shadow by Ava G., 4th grade

Reflection by Gabriel G., 4th grade

Shadow by Rianna K., 4th grade

For our Graphic Arts self portraits, we took advantage of a warm, sunny day and captured our shadows or reflections with our cameras. We then chose our favorite silhouette and manipulated it using the tools of Adobe Photoshop.

Graphic artists used the filters in the software to enhance or alter their image. As we learned in class, photography is an art form, from the initial vision that we capture in the camera lens to creating an original work of art through digital magic. Students changed their shadow or reflection by applying colors, textures, cloning areas of the image, or simply cropping it in an unusual way.

GRAPHIC ARTS . . . Finding our names in nature

Photo Name by Gabrielle M., 5th grade

Photo Name by Maggie S., 5th grade

Photo Name by Sean K., 5th grade

Photo Name by Ava J., 4th grade

Photo Name by Petra D., 4th grade

Graphic artists have completed their photo name collages. We took a walk around our campus with our digital cameras and looked for images that reminded us of the letters of our names. A tree, for example, could often be seen as a letter "Y". Part of the brick sidewalk might look like a letter "T" as Petra did with her name. Sean was clever to find the letter "E" on the playground equipment. Students were also allowed to plan their photo shoots by arranging something from nature such as rocks, twigs or leaves into the shape of a letter as you see in Ava's name.

Once we took enough images to spell out our names, these photos were uploaded to the computer. In Adobe Photoshop students opened each image and checked that it was a sharp photograph and included all of the letter that we needed to see. Then we adjusted each photo for our project. Here are some of the tools we used...

• The Cropping tool cuts off any part of the photo we don't need. It works by clicking with the tool on the image and scrolling down to include all that we want to show. By pressing down with the Shift key on the keyboard we were able to constrain the cropping image to a perfect square. 
• Under the Image Menu, we can re-size the image. We selected 4" x 4" for each photograph. This pull down menu also lets us rotate the image. Perhaps we want the image to be upside down or sideways. We did whatever was needed to see the image as a letter.
• Photoshop also allows us to adjust the brightness or the color of the image, and with special tools like the clone stamp tool, we could further adjust the image so that it really does look like the letter we need. 
• There is so much to learn in Photoshop and often professional artists aren't even aware of all the tools available for altering an image. We should never afraid to just click on a new tool and see what it does to our image. Playing around with special effects and different tools is the best way to learn new techniques, and with Photoshop, you can always undo what does not look good.

To complete this project, students learned how to merge all their retouched images together to spell out their names. When you see these wonderful name photos in our art exhibition, I hope you enjoy how recognizable the names are, even though the letters are made up of trees and manhole covers! I also hope you notice how beautiful and well composed each photograph is that makes up each name.

Note to families...
This art blog will be updated regularly with new posts sharing our daily activities in the art room and news about upcoming art exhibits. To respect the privacy of our students, names will always be limited to first name only and identifiable photos will never be accompanied with a name. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write in the comment box below or send me an email at blevine@ranneyschool.org. I would love to hear from you!
    In my class, students are given the chance to explore different materials and fun new techniques as they develop their signature style. Some young artists love to draw with a pencil, some like to paint on canvas or create images in a digital format, while others prefer working with clay and molding three-dimensional forms. In my classroom, we use a variety of materials allowing all artists to experiment and figure out which type of art they like the best. At Ranney School, we place a strong emphasis on originality and celebrate artistic differences, always nurturing and encouraging the imagination of every student.
     Remember to check out our display of finished artwork and student portfolios in the Ranney home page of Artsonia.com.  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

KINDERGARTEN . . . Our self-portraits!

Self-Portrait by Woody

Self Portrait by Josiah

This week, Kindergarten students completed their self-portraits. These wonderful images will soon become the cover of a book each artist is creating called, "All About Me!"

For our inspiration, we read the story, "The Art Lesson," by Tomie dePaola. In his book, Mr. dePaola wrote an autobiographical story about what it was like to be an art student in Kindergarten. It is filled with pictures of his best friends back when he was a young artist and all about his favorite things to do.

We are now busy drawing scenes of our best friends and our favorite things to do as well.  When we finish our pictures, we will have a complete book to share with everyone at school and at home.




WE ARE ARTISTS IN A MUSEUM!
When Lower School artists finish their projects, as the Kindergartners did with their self-portraits, I photograph everyone's work and upload the images to Artsonia.com, an online art museum for children. Artsonia brings together the artwork of students from many different countries to celebrate creativity in the classroom. All students at Ranney School are automatically a member of this international museum and will be building their own personal portfolios. Families are encouraged to browse the museum and view school exhibitions and student artwork. Students develop a sense of pride as their work becomes published on the site and is viewed by friends and family.

I sent home a paper from Artsonia with your child's special registration name and a passcode so that families can register to the site. I look forward to filling these online portfolios with beautiful work all year long! If you need the access code again, feel free to contact me.

Here are a few more examples of the Kindergarten portraits I just uploaded to Artsonia. Check out the Ranney School homepage on Artsonia.com to see everyone's work.  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Self-Portrait by Ben

Self-Portrait by Rania

Self-Portrait by Christo

Self-Portrait by Bella

Note to families...
This art blog will be updated regularly with new posts sharing our daily activities in the art room and news about upcoming art exhibits. To respect the privacy of our students, names will always be limited to first name only and identifiable photos will never be accompanied with a name. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write in the comment box below or send me an email at blevine@ranneyschool.org. I would love to hear from you!
    In my class, students are given the chance to explore different materials and fun new techniques as they develop their signature style. Some young artists love to draw with a pencil, some like to paint on canvas or create images in a digital format, while others prefer working with clay and molding three-dimensional forms. In my classroom, we use a variety of materials allowing all artists to experiment and figure out which type of art they like the best. At Ranney School, we place a strong emphasis on originality and celebrate artistic differences, always nurturing and encouraging the imagination of every student.
     Remember to check out our display of finished artwork and student portfolios in the Ranney home page of Artsonia.com.  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839