Still Lifes "After Cezanne"

After learning about the life of French painter Paul Cezanne, the upper class group created a still life in his style using Neocolor II Aquarelle Artists' Crayons ("Neocolors" for short).

Neocolors are softer than colored pencils, denser than children's wax crayons, and extremely responsive to a wet brush. Wet and dry techniques can be combined in the same drawing. Because of their strong pigmentation, light colors cover dark colors and vice-versa.

I'm very pleased with the children's results. (Click image to enlarge)

 Hudson

 Wes

 Avery

“Today our sight is a little weary, burdened by the memory of a thousand images. And these museums, and the paintings in them! … And the exhibitions! … We no longer see nature; we see pictures over and over again. To see the works of God! That is what I am striving for."
          

     - PAUL CEZANNE 

Jules Borély, “Cézanne à Aix,” l’Art Vivant (Paris: 1926), quoted in Richard Kendall, ed., Cézanne by Himself (London: Macdonald Orbis, 1988)

"After Vincent"

The eight year olds finished their Van Gogh project. 

Francesca outdid herself.

“On Allhallows Eve, I saw a cat gliding by on a pumpkin skateboard…”

 Ania

 Jimmy

 Madeleine

Will

“O, it sets my heart a clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock, When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.”

The title is from his poem "When the Frost is on the Punkin", James Whitcomb Riley (1853–1916), that set the autumn mood and inspired the children to make all manner of artworks using oil pastels, markers, soft pastels and mixed media, all now on view in our Hallway Gallery.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere

When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,

And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;

But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

Madison's Still Life

Oil pastels

Portraits

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French 1841 - 1919)
Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand, circa 1875
Oil on canvas
32 x 23 1/2 inches

Philadelphia Museum of Art

CCS's budding artists will be studying and making portraits this Fall. This process will entail students looking at and discussing qualities of well-known portraits, working with a variety of media and techniques and eventually creating a self-portrait to display in the CCS Hallway Gallery. Moms and Dads will want to be on the look out for sales on picture frames this year.

Anticipating a New School Year

Painting by Sherree Valentine-Daines

It's almost time to exchange our swimsuits and summer gear for new school clothes, books, and more disciplined schedules. There is always something exhilarating with these cyclical changes for as one season slips away we embrace the newness of the next. 

I'm looking forward to another wonderful, heARTful year at Christ Church School. 

-Ms. Evans