Group Critique Day!

Level 1 Arts Majors

The students are about 1/3rd of the way done with their self-portraits, inspired by Chuck Close and his amazing grids.  

We are working to not only increase our art skills but our art vocabulary too!

When talking about another student's artwork, students were to use their art terms (i.e. shading, value, texture, contrast, line, etc.) to talk the positives that they saw and the areas that could be improved upon with more work.  

All About That Mood Lighting!!!

Level 2 Art Majors

Before we started working on our final still life drawings of the quarter the students had two days to create a few practice drawings with the charcoal.  These practice days are built in to allow the students time to experiment with the new materials and see what techniques they prefer to use when working with this very messy material.

3 still life arrangements were set up with intense dramatic lighting, for all the students to see the shadows and highlights a little easier (their personal still life arrangements will also have a dramatic spot light as well).  

They started by marking in the basic shapes of their still life drawings then began creating detail with the black and white charcoal. 

The glass and ceramic still life.

Mixed Metals Still Life

Themed Still Life- Nautical

The Elements of Art

The Elements of Art are the basic building blocks to all works of art. 

Every work of art has at least 1 element of art or like we call it in class EofA.  

The students this year created foldables to help them remember the 7 elements of art, their definitions, and some visuals to represent them.  

1 Point Perspective- Level 1 Art Majors

For our 4th quarter "Design" project, the Level 1 Art Majors are learning all about 1 point perspective.  

We have covered the basics of horizon line, vanishing point, and how to build or create a shape that looks 3-D and goes back in space. 

The students practiced creating numerous different shapes, letters, and objects in 1 Point Perspective.

Clay Adventures Part 3

The sculptures are now ready for the drying process.  Such wonderful and different "transformations" created by the art 1s.

Clay in Progress

 Coils, Coils, and More Coils

The students are working on creating a ceramic transformation sculpture. For this ceramic piece the students were required to use both the coil and pinch pot methods for creating their designs.  

They are hard at work trying to recreate their drawings in a 3-D design.

Adventures in Clay

Today with the Art 1's we started the awesome process of building a clay sculpture.  With our ideas planned out and having been introduced to the history and techniques associated with clay building the students were excited to get to work.  

Before getting started we did a quick review of the "10 Golden Rules of Ceramics". 

Shout out to the awesome contributes of the INCREDIBLE @RT DEPARTMENT. 

A link to their page and the 10 rules is below.

http://www.incredibleart.org/files/ten.htm 

To get a true understanding of the entire building process we started with wedging our own pieces of clay.  We learned that the reason we wedge our clay is to remove any air bubbles that might be trapped underneath the surface of the clay.  They were told the horrible story of my experience with poorly wedged clay (or a really bad scoring & slip method, I can take the blame where blame is earned).  

For whatever the reason my ceramic piece and from my mistakes my students learn and hopefully we don't have any unfortunate accidents this year.

  

You know for a broken vessel, these are still some great photos... :)

Updates coming soon!

Art Majors- Leaf Triptych

Medium Study

One project the art majors worked on this quarter had them creating 3 drawings of 1 leaf from observation. Each drawing needed to be completed in a different material (1 in colored pencil, 1 in drawing pencil, and 1 in sharpie).  The goal for this project was to focus on these four Elements of Art; Color, Line, Texture, and Value while including a range of shadows and highlights both on the leaf as well as the tabletop (cast shadows).

The students had 3 days to create and mount this leaf triptych and all students rose to the challenge.

The students drawings varied from realistic colors and details to a wide range of abstract patterns and designs to represent the leaves.

Bike Drawings

Complimentary Color Bike Drawings

In order to help our students be better prepared for their auditions to the Visual Arts Department at Suitland High School, one of the projects our Art 3 work on is drawing a Bike from observation.  

For this Bike drawing the students were using a complimentary color scheme to create the shadows and highlights on their portion of the bike.

Complimentary colors are colors that are across from each other of the color wheel.

The students practiced and sketched numerous times before decided upon an angle of the bike and the complementary color scheme that they wanted to use.

Below are some student examples of their complementary color bike drawings.

Watercolor Technique

Art 2's Watercolor Techniques 

For our second quarter project the Art 2's are working on a watercolor landscape.  In order to prepare the students to use this new material the students practicing using the watercolors 8 different ways.

We began by looking at the Crayola website that describes the different ways/techniques for using watercolor paints.  If you want to take a look at the website the link is listed below.

http://www.crayola.com/things-to-do/how-to-landing/watercolors.aspx

The Techniques Practiced Are:

Color Saturation
Wash of Color
Overlay
Wet vs. Dry
Salt Sprinkles
Plastic Wrap
Crayon Resist
Color Pencil Resist

The students had a great time experimenting and practicing with this new material.

Below are some of the student examples of working with different watercolor techniques.

"Headless" Self-Portraits

Preview of Art 2's Headless Self Portraits

For this year's drawing quarter, I wanted the students to focus on creating a self portrait.  However, instead of creating another frontal view drawing of their faces, I wanted the students to create a more abstracted idea of a self portrait. 

For this project we were focusing on the element of art-value and the principle of design-emphasis.

The students were required to bring in 2 objects that represented themselves and their personalities; they must be able to interact with these objects in order for a photo to be taken of the students and their objects.  

We had a range of objects brought in everywhere from soccer balls to polished rocks found during a family trip, the students were very eager to get started.  

Last year the students use a grid to help them draw their portraits, this year I wanted the students to try to see the correct proportions without the assistance of a grid or guidelines.  

Here are some sneak peaks at what our students have been working on. 

The students are about halfway through this project.
One of their 2 objects will be colored in to create emphasis.

Color Pencil Technique

Art Majors Experimenting w/ Color Pencils

The students' (both Art 2's and Art 3's) next project involves using color pencils to create points of emphasis or contrast in their drawings.  

There are 8 color pencil techniques the students tried out today.

1.Pressure Variations

2.Stippling

3.Cross Hatching

4.Layering

5.Pencil Tip Side

6.Color Changer

7.Impressed Line

8.Pencil Resist

For more information about Color Pencil techniques or if you want to try these techniques out on your own, check out the Crayola Website for full descriptions and steps.

Paste the link below into your URL bar and enjoy!

http://www.crayola.com/things-to-do/how-to-landing/colored-pencils.aspx 

Art 2's and Art 3's Collaboration Art

Starry Night Collaboration

At the beginning of the year I like to do a collaboration artwork that allows me to asses each students' skill level, their ability to follow directions, and how well the students work together to create a large scale work of art.

For this collaboration art project each student worked on reproducing 4 small 1 inch squares, of a famous work of art, on a larger 6 inch square.

They went from one small square with a lot detail and imagery,
to a blank square that was 6 times larger than what they started with!!!

Their guidelines: Draw the 1 inch square as you see it.
Use correct proportion as you recreate it.
Color with only the colors you see in your square.

The students were given oil pastels and a short demonstration on how to use this new material before they got to work.

It took roughly 3 1/2 classes for the students to finish all their required pieces.

As some students were finishing up their squares, others quickly got to work at assembling it all together.

Some worked on the student created image,
while a few others work to reassemble the original photo.

Once it was completed and fully assembled the students were shocked at how different everyone's pieces looked together.  It surprised them that even though they were all looking at the same picture, each student perceived the Van Gogh's style and colors differently.
My advice to them was to embrace that each student is a unique and individual artist, strive to create the best works of art you are capable of, and don't compare your artwork to others', everyone's is suppose to be different and use their own style.

Their Finished Starry Night Collaboration!!!

  

Art Majors Working on our Snow Plow Design

The Final Design being picked up by the snow plow.