FOURTH GRADE . . . The art of Georgia O'Keeffe

Flower by Savanna

If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment." - Georgia O'Keeffe

Fourth graders paused in their busy schedules at school to admire the beautiful work of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), an American artist, best known for her studies of nature. She often zoomed in on her subjects, getting us all to slow down and notice the beauty she captured in the world around her. She did not paint an entire field of flowers, but instead focused on the shapes and colors of just one blossom.

As well as inspiring us to admire the details in a single flower, a seashell, or even an animal skull, Georgia O'Keeffe was also a master of color and blending. To follow her example, we each chose a photograph of something from nature and drew the image very large on our canvases. Then, we selected our color palette, considering carefully how to create the best blends.

To make two colors blend together, we referred to the color wheel. Colors that are close to each other on the wheel will make the most natural blends. Adding white will create a tint of the color and adding darker hues will create a shade of the color. Any of these color choices would work well. To blend the colors directly on the canvas, we worked in one area at a time, letting our paintbrushes do the blending. For a flower with many petals, that meant applying wet colors and blending them together before they dry, one petal at a time.

These fourth grade nature paintings are sure to be the highlight of our upcoming art show next month and I am just as proud for them to grace the screen of my art blog. Bravo to all my artists! Here are more examples of what we will be showing off in the gallery. To see everyone's paintings, follow this link to our home page on artsonia.com. http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Flower by Ryan

Landscape by Hamid

Animal Skull by Olivia

Seashell by Zuri

FIFTH GRADE . . . Illusions!

Courtney's illusion of a cupcake is beautifully drawn. Can you find the first letter "C"?

Maurits Cornelis Escher, best known to us as M.C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. His woodcut, called "Sky and Water," from 1938, is typical of Escher's work. It plays around with the positive and negative spaces in the print, tricking us to focus on just the birds in the sky and not realizing that the white spaces between the birds actually create the fish in the water. In mathematical terms, his artwork is often called a tessellation, a repetition of tiles that fit together like a puzzle.

Fifth graders worked on original illusions with one image that transforms into another image. This project was difficult for us to do and definitely called on our creative thinking skills. It is hard enough to solve a problem, even harder to come up with our own puzzle for everyone else to solve!

Here are a few more examples of our illusions. To see all of our work, check out our exhibit page on Artsonia.com.  http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Rithvik's illusion focuses on an adorable drawing of a boy. Do you see the word boy as well?

Ruby created a real tessellation just like M.C. Escher.
The negative space between the orange birds forms the head of another bird perfectly!

Krishna's illusion is a play on the word ruler. Do you see the two meanings of the word?

Lynna's illusion takes us on a visual journey with her letters. What country is this?

Cole's delicious illusion is right in the crust design of his pie!

Gabriel's initials are GG. His illusion was tricky to do but represents him well!

Elle's illusion is perfect for an artist. What drawing tool would you use to write the word pencil?

Abriella stumps us with a puzzle. She wrote the word fruit, but what kind of fruit is this?

THIRD GRADE. . . Painting like Kandinsky

Concentric Shapes by Sydney Z.

Kandinsky

Third graders learned about Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), a Russian born artist who made his name working in an art style called Expressionism. Kandinsky was very much inspired by music. His paintings often reflected the sounds and repetitive rhythms of a musical composition. He also felt that color could express emotion and tell a story, even though the composition was pure abstract art. In Kandinsky's "Squares with Concentric Circles," he experimented by combining shapes with different colors simply to see which ones felt right to him.

To begin our project, third graders had a lesson on how to use a ruler. We divided our papers into six squares, measuring and ruling out the lines of our squares. In each square we drew a simple shape. Some students drew all circles, just like Kandinsky. In Sydney's example above, there is a different shape for each box. We then painted in each shape and added rings of color around each shape.

Here are other examples of our third grade abstract paintings. To see all of our work, follow this link to our exhibit page on artsonia.com.   http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Concentric Shapes by Connor G.

Concentric Shapes by Mia G.

Concentric Shapes by Sloane P.

Concentric Shapes by Ansh P.

Concentric Shapes by Lyla G.

KINDERGARTEN . . . Our colorful dogs!

Orange Dog by Olivia

"Why is Blue Dog Blue?" is a colorful picture book, written and illustrated by George Rodrigue. In this story, Blue Dog changes color for many reasons. For example, what color does Mr. Rodrigue paint his dog when he eats a hot dog? Mustard, of course!

We learned how to draw a sitting dog in our class, following the pose of the familiar Blue Dog. Then we set about choosing just the perfect color for our dogs. Some of our dogs stayed blue, others were painted turquoise, magenta, black, orange... What color would you paint your dog, and why? As always we focus on the story behind the artwork we make. Kindergarteners described the color of their painted dogs and why they picked that color.

Here are some of our stories. To see all of our Kindergarten dogs, follow this link to our exhibit page on artsonia.com.   http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Magenta Dog by Chloe

Turquoise Dog by Lila

Brown Dog by Sal

Blue Dog by Patrick

Turquoise Dog by Gabriella

Pink Dog by Kaitlyn

BEGINNERS . . . Drawing and Painting

Painting by Catherine

Our Beginner artists created these wonderful scenes with mixed colors of paint and adorable crayon drawings. We used blue and white paint to create a light blue color for the sky and added brush strokes of white on top as fluffy clouds. Yellow and blue mixed together gave us the perfect grassy green color for the ground. Our animals were drawn with crayons and we used circles and lines to create them.

Painting by Adam

Painting by Akira

Painting by Angela

Painting by Axl

Painting by Francesco

Painting by Jai

Painting by Lia

Painting by Noah

Painting by Sebastian

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

SECOND GRADE . . . A Norman Rockwell Scene

Gianna E.

Second graders created landscapes of Ranney School. Can you recognize some of the buildings in Gianna's illustration? She drew a remarkable likeness of the Clock Tower, the Lower School building, the GPA and the Commons. But even more impressive are her details of the winter tree, the flag waving in the sky, the school bus filled with children, and the lovely and creative sky. We look at and admire these details to better appreciate her story of Ranney School.

Inspired by the artwork of Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), we saw how the amazing details of Rockwell's scenes help capture our interest and tell us his story about life in 20th century America. The image below is a street scene of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the town where he lived. Norman Rockwell not only included the buildings on Main Street in Stockbridge, but he filled his painting with people and cars passing by to give us a sense of what life was like in his town. We can also tell it takes place during December by the Christmas decorations on the buildings, the bare trees outside, and the snow on the ground.

To create our landscapes, we looked carefully at the architectural details of the buildings on our campus. For the most part, the buildings all start off as a rectangle and many of them have a triangular roof just over the front door. Adding special details, such as the windows, the columns, a flag, a winter tree, a sign, and kids playing outside, help to describe what we see at our school.

Here are some more wonderful examples of our landscapes. To admire all of our work, follow this link to our exhibit page on artsonia.com.   http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Scout M.

William K.

Ava C.

Timmy K.

Alina P.

FIRST GRADE . . . Birch trees in the snow

Landscape by Asha

Our first grade landscapes feature watercolor birch trees. Students not only learned facts about these remarkable trees, but they also learned a few painting tips along the way!

Birch trees have a very characteristic bark, very similar in appearance to the trees in Asha's painting above. A birch is a medium sized tree that can reach up to 50 feet in height and can live to be 200 years old. The deep ridges in our trees are typical of an older birch tree. The seeds and the bark provide food for forest animals, such as rabbits, deer and birds. Wood from the birch tree can be used to make canoes, basketball courts, toys, furniture and paper!

Bella's trees after the
masking tape is removed.

To create our landscapes, we used an old painter's trick. After drawing a ground line across the page, first graders placed strips of masking tape on their paper. These strips represented the trees and the tape protected the white bark of the trees from getting covered with watercolor paints. Then we painted a sky using brilliant colors.

When the paint set, the strips of tape were peeled off the paper. Using a Sharpie marker, students drew the deep ridges of the birch tree bark. With test paper and more watercolors, we "watered" down some black paint to create just the right shade for the shadow along the bark of each tree. With another color, we cast a shadow over the snowy ground.



Here are some more examples of our beautiful winter landscapes. To see all of our work, follow this link to our home page of Artsonia!    http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=114839

Landscape by Deegan

Landscape by Nikita

Landscape by Marc

Landscape by Judah

Landscape by Sadie