Special Projects
Roderick McKinnon Mural
In 2009, students in Drawing & Painting worked with artist Lei San Doo to create a mural honoring Nobel-Prize winning chemist (and Burlington High School grad) Roderick MacKinnon.
Promotional Graphics for School Musical - The Wizard of Oz
In the Spring of 2009, the sophomores and juniors in the Graphic Design classes were involved in a project to design promotional graphics for the school musical, The Wizard of Oz. Each student designed a two-color playbill cover and a full-color poster. The artist whose work was selected went on to create two other variations: a sandwich board advertisement and a billboard.
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Visit this link for more about the design that was used.:
The Burlington Town Flag Design
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In March 2009, our Graphic Design students participated in a contest to create a new design for Burlington's town flag. The last design was created in 1974.
The designs were sent to the town administrators, who formed a panel to judge them after interviewing each of the artists.
The lesson for this project can be found at the following link:
The designs above were the four finalists. After three rounds of competition, Sara Martin's (BHS Class of 2009) design was chosen to be Burlington's new town flag.
Murals at the Burlington Police Station
In the fall of 2008, at the request of Police Chief Fran Hart, our Portfolio class painted a series of six murals on the third floor of the Burlington Police Station.
Chair Project
In the Spring of 2007, the art department responded to a request by the Burlington Town Library for student involvement in their “Chair Project”. Students in Ms. Riley’s Drawing & Painting class painted chairs using visual themes. The chairs were displayed in the Town Library and later auctioned.
The Artist Notecard Project
In late November of 2006, the Portfolio class printed a series of notecards featuring some of the best work by the advanced art students. There were two sets, each containing ten notecards with ten different artworks, with envelopes, in a pearl white stationary box. Each box contained an assortment of landscapes, still lifes, photographs, digital art, abstractions and imaginative work. Set 1 included work by: Jenn Vachon, Rachel Gregorio, Marissa Jones, Michael Lowe, Melissa Godin, Ivan Gombya, Noelle Hagopian, Megan Kelley, Christina Coyne, and Chris Magliozzi. Set two included work by: Jacob Sherburne, Kate Schissler, Shauna Leva, Conor Murphy, Catherine Mezynski, Sam Faller, Colleen Dolan, Ross Baker, Catryna Conway, and Alysse Gerardi. The notecard sets were sold through the school bookstore and through the art department. The purpose
of their sale was to get Burlington High School artists' work out to a wider audience, and the purchase price will go towards continuing this printing project in the future and for funding other special opportunities for BHS art students. The printing of the notecards was funded by a grant from the Burlington Education Foundation.
Murals at the Burlington Fire Station
In 2006, a request by Fire Chief Lee Callahan was answered by some of our Portfolio students, who painted murals of the Burlington Rent-tool fire and the Francis Wyman House fire at Fire Department Headquarters. Michaela Baril, Tiffany Huang, Heather McCarthy, Christopher McCrobie, Kristen Rubino, and Geoffrey Silvis volunteered their artistic services for this project.
The Calf Project
In 2006, the art department responded to a request by the Burlington Business Round Table for student involvement in their “Calf Project”, with partial proceeds benefiting Lahey Clinic’s Gordon Cancer Center. Portfolio students Tiffany Huang, Heather McCarthy, Christopher McCrobie, Kristen Rubino, and Geoffrey Silvis painted a fiberglass calf in the image of a construction worker. This calf was sponsored by Northland Residential Development. Cambridge Savings Bank’s “Moolah” was painted by Drawing and Painting students Ivan Gombya, Catryna Conway, Michael Lowe, Agamani Sakar, and Tiffany Huang. The Starbuck’s-sponsored “Moocaccino” was painted by Christina Coyne, Melissa Godin, Tiffany
Huang, and Shauna Leva. These painted calfs were displayed in the Un-Common Calf Parade on the Burlington Common on Burlington Pride Day. They were later auctioned.
Illustrations for Children's Benefit CD: Songs for Sibusiso
During the fall of 2004, students in Burlington High School's Communication Arts 2 class worked on the illustrations for a CD of children's music to benefit South African children living with AIDS.
The Communication Arts courses (now called Graphic Design) were designed for those students interested in commercial art, graphic design, and illustration. During their first year in CA, students learned the basics of "speaking with imagery". They developed their brainstorming and idea-generation skills, learned the importance of process, and refined their technical skills with some of the tools of illustration and graphic design, including the pen-and-ink technique, which they used on this project.
In addition to using traditional art-making tools, students in Communication Arts gained a working knowledge of some of the most popular programs in the professional graphics field, including Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. More important than knowing the tools, however, was their understanding that the computer is just a tool, and they were able to move back and forth between technology and traditional means to create works incorporating both methods.
Although there were professional graphic designers involved in the layout and printing of this particular project, the high school artists began to understand the step-by-step process in bringing a work through publication. There was regular communication, through art instructor Mr. Ratkevich, between the young artists and the professionals involved in the project. This was truly a collaboration of skills and efforts.
The Communication Arts 2 students used the skills they developed the previous year to create a series of spot illustrations of characters and scenes described in the songs, and hand-drawn "drop-caps" (the ornate capital letters at the beginning of certain illustrated texts), using the hatching and cross-hatching strokes of the drawing pen. These visuals were integrated with the lyrics in a sixteen-page booklet included in the CD. To create a cohesive look among the work of the different artists, the class studied the works of classic children's book illustrators, as well as more contemporary works by artists such as Maurice Sendak and Edward Gorey, and deciding on the "look" of the drawings as a whole. Time was an issue in the CDs production, and students worked under a tight deadline.
After the student artwork was completed, it was digitized through scanning in Burlington High School's MacIntosh lab, and handed over to Designer/Art Director Lauren Hawkins (Principal of Paperdoll Design, a Northshore design agency) for layout. Graphic designer Amy Osborne took part in conceptualizing and print buying. Mr. Ratkevich illustrated the front and back covers, and the CD itself, based on the characters his students came up with. Originally, Mr. Ratkevich was to illustrate the entire booklet, and thought his students might be interested in a second project if one came up. He knew that if any group was up to such a challenge, it was this class. The juniors and seniors had grown into a mature team comfortable with sharing their ideas and their opinions. And he was sure of their abilities. After speaking to his students, who all
expressed interest in taking part in it, Mr. Ratkevich realized that this CD was a perfect opportunity to involve the young artists in "real-life" work, and to demonstrate how artists can work for a cause. The project's organizer, musician Michael O'Connor, was excited about the prospect of having young people create the artwork for a kids' CD.
O'Connor visited the Communication Arts classes to discuss his vision of the CD project with students, and to answer any questions they might have before beginning their first professional gig. O'Connor discussed the severity of life with HIV in South Africa, the cultural and social implications it has in the country. He told anecdotes about a group of HIV-infected singers (whose music was featured be on the CD) with whom he traveled as their nurse. The class listened to segments of the tracks, read the lyrics, and were assigned homework: the drop cap.
The CD contains music performed by members of several popular Boston bands, and features reggae and world music versions of well-known kids' songs, as well as new songs based on Aesop's fables, some African folk tunes, and original songs by some of the performers.
Members of the Boston bands Babaloo, Lovewhip, and the reggae band Pressure Cooker all volunteered their time to record songs. The recording sessions were overseen by Pressure Cooker saxophonist O'Connor, who also serves as a nurse at Boston Medical Center.
The production sought to raise funds for the organization Sibusiso, which means "blessings" in Zulu. All proceeds went to children with AIDS living in South Africa.
The album was released in time for the holiday gift-buying season of 2004. A website for the CD was set up, and the CD can still be found at the following site:
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