been in only nine months. “It is safe to

been in only nine months.

“It is safe to say that 100 percent of the students in grades kindergarten through seven had one or more hugely successful pieces of art,” observed Marcy Lynn Lauben, the Lower School art teacher.

“Everything on display was skillfully rendered. There were surprising realistic details, great composition, and richly expressive colors, and it is due in no small part to Monart.”

Lauben reported that by the middle of the school year, all of her students, even the ones who did not consider themselves “artistic,” had gained confidence and were unafraid to tackle the projects.

“It’s amazing what they ended up doing,” she said. “In addition to teaching my six to 14 year olds how to draw more realistically, I also wanted to introduce them to important artists and their styles, so I had second and third graders copying Picasso and Van Eyck paintings. No one complained, and everyone did a great job.”

Alongside the traditional art forms —drawings paintings, ceramics, sculpture, mixed media and collage— the art show also featured graphic design and commercial art projects. In an effort to get the students to understand that artists are responsible for designing “the stuff of our everyday lives,” they illustrated CD covers, designed logos, business cards, marionette puppets, board games and even made an animated cartoon.

The third grade’s cartoon, based on the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, was probably the highlight of the show. Tb complete this project, each of the 10 third graders picked a character from the poem to develop. Pencil drawings were made of the characters and background scenes.

Then the students came up with a storyboard and recorded all the audio clips. This material was then given to Lauben’s husband, Gary, and his company, Lilypad Graphics.

He was responsible for animating the students’ drawings. He scanned each of the drawings, converting them to a