A Night at the Ranney Museum

Ranney’s Lower School division hosted a "Night at the Ranney Museum" in RSPA Panther Hall Gallery on Thursday, January 20, 2011. Despite an uncooperative weather forecast, many students, faculty members, families and friends fought through snow and cold temperatures to see fine art from Beginners through grade five as well as graphic art from grades four and five.

While Lower School music and art teacher Victoria Chriss’ fine art classes created paintings using watercolor to represent sailboats, flowers and vases, and oil pastel fruit bowls, art teacher Barbara Levine’s fine art classes’ projects featured Ranney School street scenes, jungle paintings, wildlife portraits and freestyle painted landscapes.

Inspired by French artist Henri Rousseau, Ms. Levine’s third grade class used wax resist techniques to generate portraits of jungle life — each containing clever and colorful animals amongst beautifully adorned trees. Meanwhile, inspired by the detailed drawings and paintings of famous American illustrator Norman Rockwell, Ms. Levine’s second grade class used architectural art techniques to create detailed and realistic photos of Ranney’s own Commons, GPA, Annex, Lower School Academic Complex and more.

Graphic art self-portraits and Panther Storybook Illustrations, completed during Ms. Levine’s graphic arts elective, were also displayed throughout the exhibition. For instance, based on the artwork of present day British artist Julian Opie, fourth grade students created self-portraits using Adobe Illustrator to draw smooth curves, create shapes, blend colors and arrange objects with overlap.

Although each Lower School art project assigned to students for display at a Night at the Ranney Museum was inspired by other great works of art, the end result for all was a unique piece of artwork that exemplified the broad range of diversity and excellence seen in students in every division at Ranney.