The Ratner Montessori School Art Program

I apologize for missing a couple of weeks with the blog posts, report cards always throw my schedule off a bit! Work continued on technical drawing techniques in the upper grades and all the students have been busy creating cards for the upcoming Gala. Each level of student will have a collaborative piece available for bids at the auction. I am very excited about the work they are creating and see a bidding war for the work occurring at the event.  I know the student artwork is much anticipated each year at the Gala and I am glad to have a part in the guidance of the projects. We have such a creative group of students, they make the task easy! 

Kindergarten Art

The students had such a wonderful time creating their "quilts" for our study of Gee's Bend quilters. They all created wonderful weavings and then painted a background quilt pattern to place their weaving square on top of. Each student chose where their weaving would be attached and the results are whimsical and beautiful. This was the first time I approached this project with these materials and techniques and I am so pleased with the results. All the work is hanging in the hallway and I hope you have the opportunity to view your child's work. We are going to begin work today on the Gala playing card project. Each student will create a collaged playing card to be joined together in a quilt inspired collage piece that will be available at the Gala for bids. I am sure the work will be beautiful!

Elementary I (1st, 2nd and 3rd Grade)

Following our printing fest, the Elementary I teachers asked if I could collaborate with them on creating some visual pieces for the Friendship Store the students are building. The students created a type of  visual exchange unit using the symbols of a band-aid, sun, lightbulb and heart. Each symbol represents a different act of kindness. Along with the symbol work, the students created a large banner for the store. Following the work on the store, we began work on the Gala playing card art. I let the students experiment with a variety of materials and set them free to create. Out of the hundreds of cards they created, each student will be represented in a final card collage to be auctioned off at the upcoming Gala. We have not collaged the final piece yet, but they created several beautiful examples to choose from! 

Elementary II (4th, 5th and 6th Grade)

Work was finally completed across the grades on the tesselations and the bird houses, so we quickly moved on to working on more technical drawing skills. For several of the new students, one point perspective was a new process and proved to be challenging. We worked for two class going step by step working on following the process. The majority of the students were successful with the perspective drawing and all of the 4th and 5th grade students became proficient with shading techniques. Moving on from the technical lessons, we began the looser and openly creative playing card project. This groups focus is creating two sets of art: one set is based on scratch art and the other set is colored and collaged. I am really pleased with the scratch art cards, they are visually beautiful. I am working on how to present the collection for the Gala and am very excited to see the pieces come together. 

 

7th and 8th Grade Art

We have had a productive couple of weeks in Middle School art. After completing the printing project, I re-introduced more technical processes for the students in preparation for advanced art in high school. We worked on shading, perspective drawing and figure drawing. This was really a refresher unit for most students and they retained the majority of the skills from a year or two ago. Last week was dedicated to working on the Gala playing card project. The students could create any card art they wanted and then I asked them to "sculpt" the cards, cutting and changing them into a shallow 3-D design. I am excited to see how the individual art comes together for the Gala donation. 

The Ratner Montessori School Art Program

We have completed the print making projects in all the grade levels and will start on new units next week. The students all created vastly different work using the same process and I always marvel at the work they create. I will try to get all the prints displayed soon so everyone can enjoy the work. 

Kindergarten Art

We had a printing festival in the art room last week! The students completely enjoyed the process and pulled several lovely prints. Each student had at least three prints and all students had the option of printing on colored paper or found maps to continue the work. They were wonder-filled at the process and I am so glad to be able to introduce printmaking at such a young age. We are beginning a project today based on the art of the quilts of Gee's Bend. I have attached a video on the blog that you may want to watch with your child to learn more about the amazing work. More on this project next week!
I have wrapped up several pieces of artwork from the Kindergarten class, I apologize for taking so very long getting their work sent home to you. It is a goal of mine to get more efficient at sending the work home in a more timely manner. I hope you enjoy the work as much as I do!

Elementary I Art (1st, 2nd and 3rd Grade)

The students finished their work on coloring the black and white prints and I wanted to introduce the technique of shading to the 1st and 2nd grade classes. While it is unusually early to introduce this technique to students this age, they are a particularly skilled group with great skills in art, so I wanted to see if they could understand the technique. They, as usual, did not disappoint! They enjoyed the technique so much they wanted to spend both classes working on practicing their skills. Several students wanted they practice work displayed, so it is hanging in the second floor at the top of the main stairs. I love seeing their enthusiasm and pride in their work. The 3rd grade students were fully engaged in finishing their statement art for their printed frames and that work was completed this week as well. The pieces are displayed in the 2nd floor hallways. 

 

Elementary II (4th, 5th and 6th Grade)

We still had a few students not finished with the tessellation coloring process, so those students completed their work at the beginning of the class this week. The students that had completed their work last week had a lesson on shading techniques. The 4th and 5th grade students drew a circle and then shaded the shape to give the illusion of dimension using the shading techniques. I have encouraged them to practice shading as often as possible as it is a technique that requires many hours of practice to improve. I am pleased to report that the 6th grade birdhouse project is finally complete! The students were proud of their work and wanted to take the houses home right away. I hope many birds find the houses agreeable.

7th and 8th Grade Art

We had a flurry of printmaking last week in art. Several students have experience and experimented with printmaking for many years with me and I wanted to try and come up with a new approach to pulling a print. We had several plywood block of wood that were donated to us through MOCA, so we decided to try a wood block print. Because the wood was plywood, we could not use the traditional printmaking tools, so we decided to make the images by hammering and wood burning the designs into the wood. It was an experiment and the students seemed to really enjoy the process.