This weekend's homework:
Pick one or more objects that have dimension and are universally recognizeable as toys (i.e., baby dolls, dump trucks, barbies, older action figures, legos, doll houses, instruments, etc.). Use antique toys if they are available to you--Goodwill is a good place to get random things to draw, including toys.
Draw your toy over the weekend (in graphite?) and bring in the toy, along with your drawing, on Monday for critique.
New digital submission info:
From what I have read, the format is set up as follows:
- You will receive a unique login (from me) for your portfolio and for our class at EHS. We should receive this information and begin using the online system early next semester.
- You will keep your portfolio online and regularly upload pieces as they are completed.
- Once your portfolios are complete and final, you will send them to me, and I will approve and transmit them to College Board for you.
- If your portfolio is not complete or slides are improperly shot and/or edited, I can send it back to you for resubmission.
- You will write your essay online and submit it along with your digital slides.
- You will absolutely need to plan on finishing your portfolio by the end of April in case something goes wrong in the submission process or in case you need to re-shoot anything.
- I will submit all portfolios, finished or not, by the May 8th deadline.
Please let me know if you have questions!
Thanksgiving Break Homework:
- Complete your self-portrait. Critique Wednesday after break (12/3).
- Shoot & edit slides (if you have the capabilities). 7 sides due Tuesday after break.
- Choose your favorite piece of artwork that you have made this year. Start thinking about your best works essay—we will write this the week of Dec. 1.
- New assignment: Create a tiny still life of personal objects that are important to you or represent you. This could be keys, a camera, a paint brush, a pencil, a book, a fork, a coffee cup, and a toothbrush… WHATEVER. Choose your lighting carefully. Create an enlarged drawing, filling the page with three or more of your objects. Use all four sides of the page. Spend at least three (total) hours on this. Use graphite and then incorporate something else (ink, colored pencils, charcoal, all of the above? Or something else?). Due Monday after break (12/1).
Due dates for edited slides & portfolio critiques
November 7: 5 slides due
December 2: 7 slides due
December 12: 10 slides due for 12/15 portfolio critique
January 16: Completed breadth portfolio submitted to drop box (12 slides) for 1/20 portfolio critique
February 18: Initial Concentration set due (3 slides)
Other dates TBA... remember that the ENTIRE portfolio will be completed by May 8th, 2009.
Concepts to think about and look for in the 12/15 and 1/20 breadth portfolio critiques:
Drawing:
Light and shade
Contrast/tonal values
Line quality
Technique
Perspective
Illusion of depth
Mark-making
Composition
Pattern
Color relationships
Representational works
Abstract works
Range of materials
Range of styles
Range of content
Risk-taking & experimentation
2-D:
Unity/ Variety
Contrast
Color relationships
Balance
Emphasis
Rhythm
Repetition
Proportion/Scale
Figure-ground relationships
Representational works
Abstract works
Range of materials
Range of styles
Range of content
Risk-taking & experimentation
Order vs. Chaos
Order; when i was thinking chaos, first thought i had was just crazy surreal organic stuff everywhere. Pure abstract with just plain shapes an what not i dont enjoy though. its like you dont have a set plan. And thats what i did, experimented. but didnt like any, as you can see its like a salmon swirl color with bearly jade in it, then the jade bubbles. First i used tape an painted over that to see if it would make cool lines, but turned out crappy, and i really didnt like the purple. so after 3 layers of paint later, i used a rough green cleaning sponge to make the swirls, and used a stenci to make messy bubbles. Then later thought i would add the faces to my bubbles for a nice touch. So it didnt seem pure abstract to me. This was originally going to be my chaos picture, but it looks too suddle an relaxing to be a chaos picture, its not hectic.
Chaos; this one was suppose to by my order because of the geometric shapes, but when i think of it, just think of smooth solid shapes. i at first wanted to make the shapes going into vanishing points, but didnt like it so much, so i figured i would bring it to this fade on the corners taking away the sight of the crappy vanishing points. the backgroung an 'explosions' you can call them make this piece look more chaotic then it was actually intended to be. i also addedthe face on the face of that cube for good measure. funny how these pieces turned out.
Chaos : Order
Chaos: I started my chaos piece with the idea that I wanted to use a ruler. So I mixed up some red and violet and made a background changing in the middle. After that I took my ruler, pulled it threw paint and slapped it down. I kept messing with paint by using my ruler, smearing and slapping... stuff like that. This represents chaos to me, because nothing really matches or fits together to well, very random.
Order: I started my order with a blue background and then some grey streaks. After that I added some shapes and a the few white accents. This to me is orderly from the repetition and when painting everything but the shapes the brush strokes went in the same direction... dont like it....
Sophia's Chaos & Order Paintings
In my black and white piece I started by first sketching out what I wanted to do on a separate sheet of paper then, on my canvas I painted a grey wash on the area I wanted my object to be. I used acrylic and water. Next still using acrylic I started adding detail line and shading.
My second piece represents chaos to me because it has no pattern and looks as though it was unintentional along with holding no specific shape or form:
On this piece I used red and white paint. First I put some white and red paint next to each other on a pallet. Then I swirled part of each color together but I did not blend them; I kept the paint colors separate but swirled. With a pallet knife I picked up the paint and spread it on the canvas.
In both pieces I used value, form, movement and balance. On the black and white piece I used unity because of the composition. For my other piece there is more negative space on the canvas then positive, and there is variety.
Chaos
1) To me, chaos is random, unplanned, spontaneous, and messy.
2)I did this piece in watercolor using only white, black, yellow, blue, and red. I chose watercolor because I know it's a medium that tends to have a mind of its own. First I wet the entire surface of the paper with an old makeup brush dipped in water, and then touched a loaded paintbrush to make small and large blobs of color. Some parts of the painting developed puddles, so I tried adding a little color to make it all swirly, and tilting the paper so it would move around a bit. Unfortunately the swirls ended up just mixing themselves together and turned an icky brown. I dabbed some of this up with a paper towel and tried to do those spots over, but since I did end up using a lot of color and all of it wet, the piece ended up sort of a blended together medium tone anyway. Lastly I took an old toothbrush, loaded it, and ran it across the handle of the paintbrush so it would splatter tiny drops everywhere. I got a little carried away with this step since it was so dang fun, as is evident since you can barely see the bottom blob layer. XP (<-face)
3) My piece has elements of texture, contrast, pattern, and color.
Order
1) To me, order is geometric shapes, bold lines, flat color or evenly shaded, and patterns.
2)I prefer using tempura over acrylic because I am messy, especially with art media, and tempura is more easily clean-up-able since it's water soluble. I covered the sheet of cardboard (experimental surface choice I probably won't reuse) with a sort of pea green. I then used drafting tape to make stencils on the surface that I could paint over. First I divided the background and added color to the two outer sides, then after it dried I taped stencils of the large triangles, added color, let dry, and then did the same for the black borders around the shapes. When I tried to do the small triangles, the light colors were letting the dark underneath them show through, an effect I did not want. I also did not want the effect lifting up the tape gave, which ripped off bits of paint AND paper!! Grrr... I tried to glue on the shapes with construction paper instead to create the effect I wanted, which is probably the medium I should have used anyway, and I tried to add some water to smooth out the parts that got lifted up by tape or cracked. This finished piece is not the result I wanted and I definitely will not use this in my portfolio XP
3) This piece shows line, shape, and color elements the most.
Order and Chaos Pieces.
To create my order piece, first I painted the two circles in black and white acrylic, and then I did the three squares on the side. I used circles and squares to represent order. The two different shapes show order in it’s different forms.
My Chaos piece used good balance, technique and space. I got good balance and space from the Dark green drips. I got good technique from the big brush stroke I used for the background.
On my order piece I created movement.
To create my order piece I used black and white acrylic. To many colors can cause chaos if not used correctly. I used good texture, movement and rhythm, by the different the shades of Acrylic that I used and my techniques to make texture.
I believe that chaos is when order is out of control. or you can think of order as chaos that is calm. To represent this I wanted Order to be organized, and repetitive while Chaos was random and wild.
I planned out the pieces by making sketches of how each was different and worked the sketches so that recognizable bits of order where in the chaos piece. The sketch was done as one piece so that the two would connect as one piece. I painted the order piece first so that i could get a pattern that I continue onto the chaos piece. I wanted the Order piece to glow so that the chaos piece would be bright so I pick blue and green adding yellow to brighten the green a bit and had the colors blend smoothly throughout the painting. On the chaos painting I added all sorts of different lines and forms and some movement to the work to give it more energy.
The order piece is very balance and repetitive. Analogous colors were used to keep the energy down. The these colors were also easy to blend for a satisfying look of glow. Not a lot going on.
The Chaos piece has lots of movement and contrast with the warm colors at the bottom flowing around to the cool at the top. There are jagged cuts of red through it's cool compliment green and there are some spurts where the lightning like lines hit and exit the spheres. A lot of things going on.
Blog Assignment Due 10/22
1. How do these paintings represent, to you, the concepts of chaos and order? Remember some of the words you used in class:
Chaos is... organic, curves, randomness, splatter,
unintentional, etc.Order is... geometric, straight lines, stripes, outlines,
solid colors, etc.
2. What was your process for creating each piece (describe each in detail from start to finish)?
3. Define and describe each piece in terms of the elements & principles of art represented.
Please post no later than October 24.
AP Studio Art Digital Submission Guidelines
I've received come information from College Board about how we will be submitting your portfolios. We will submit them online, which means we won't have to mail in anything except your five quality pieces! No slides!
From the College Board web page:
"Beginning this school year, the College Board will implement a digital, Web-based submission process for the three AP Studio Art portfolios. For the May 2009 exam administration, portfolio sections that have traditionally required slides will now require digital images instead of slides. Please note that changing from slides to digital submission will not change any of the content requirements for the portfolios. The Quality section for the Drawing and 2-D Design portfolios will still require students to submit actual artworks, and the number of images required for all sections will remain the same.
Requirements for Students’ Digital Images
File format: All images must be submitted in JPEG format (file name extension .jpg).
Image size
Landscape orientation:
Recommended maximum size: 780 x 530 pixels (10.83 x 7.36 inches)
Recommended minimum size: 480 x 480 pixels (10.83 x 7.36 inches)
Portrait orientation:
Recommended maximum size: 530 x 780 pixels (7.36 x 10.83 inches)
Recommended minimum size: 480 x 480 pixels (6.67 x 6.67 inches)
Note: The image sizes above are recommendations. Your image sizes may be different.
Maximum file size: 3.0 MB per image"
We will format and upload all files in class, so do not worry if you're not sure how to do any of this. We will do our first photo shoot the week of October 13th. Start bringing in any work that you would like to photograph--okay to bring in anything you've done within the last year or so.
Looking for a RAP topic?
Take a look at the following:
Writing about Art
Dartmouth's guide for writing about Art History
Then look up "Visual Art Vocabulary" online and revisit those words you always hear me talking about... line, shape, form, balance, composition, texture, etc...
Don't forget that you may choose a contemporary artist, someone you are interested in who is doing things now, shaking up the "art world." Who knows, you may even be able to track them down for an interview?
Start formulating a research topic, and then see me for help developing your ideas.
Tomasz Alen Kopera
He wants to stop the spectator for a longer moment and to arouse in him the need of consideration and contemplation.
I think that he is successful with stoping the spectator "me" for a longer moment, because his work defiantly had that impact on me. His work is creative and brings a strong expression of feeling forward. It inspires me to be creative myself and to open my eyes to different styles. It is different from my art by having a fantasy twist to his art. I focus more on the body than fantasy. In this piece I like the colors he uses. They’re light and not overwhelming, I personally like plain black and white but with this piece i really like the colors he used. I also like the lighting and shading. It makes me want to be there as if it were real I think that the lighting and shading brings a lot of emotion into the picture. His work will influence me to be more detailed and to create emotion in a drawing, rather than just drawing what you see.
All of his work is amazing and there are others that I really like and would of liked to put up here only I didn’t know if they where appropriate for school, but I defiantly think you should check them out.
http://www.myspace.com/artalen
Zach's Artist: Frank Frazetta
Frank Frazetta has a realistic representational style for his oil paintings. He uses composition and value to really well.
Frank Frazetta started out his art career by drawing comics. Born February 9 1928 he published his first professional work in 1944 at the age of 16. He was learning how to paint at the time but kept and drawing comics for a while. By 1955 Frazetta had pulled back from comics after working under Al Capp. After a while Roy Krenkel convinced Frank to do paperback book covers. 1965 to 1973 were productive years for the painter doing several covers for series such as Vampirella and Conan. He even did magazines and posters. Frazetta become a big influence on many science fiction artists. To this day frank Frazetta has many health problems so he doesn’t do many professional works any more but his art is highly regarded to where a simple sketch could sell for thousands of dollars. Though he mainly works in oil paints he can use watercolor, ink and pencils masterfully.
I like this work because of the composition and the value on the different colors. I like how the tree gets molded into the background and how the colors flatten as they do so giving atmosphere to the background. The placement of the warrior and the height of the water at his shins give you a good sense of the space between the warrior and the crocodile (or alligator witch ever it is). I also like how he blended the sky and water together putting a reflection below the monster and the tree and using a stream of color around the bodies and the warrior’s legs.
The style is very different from mine by the use of color and value to create an atmosphere. I believe that these two things along with well-placed figures will affect my style this semester.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Frazetta
http://www.bpib.com/frazetta.htm
http://frankfrazetta.org/
Artist: Katie De Sousa
Christian's Artist: Blaine Fontana
Blaine Fontana uses mostly Acrylic on canvas with some oil paintings, and uses styles as some would put it, ‘cartoonesque, surreal, and abstract.’ His paintings are of many things that surround him and of that he studies, which most of his work consist of spiritual beings and life. Fontana was born in Seattle, Washington and raised in Bainbridge. In high school he first studied sculpture, graphic design, and life drawings. After graduating he spent 4 years of his life between Portland and Seattle doing graffiti. Finally he attended Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California in 1998, and graduated in 2002. Since then he has worked for many companies such as Drifter, Metro Pop, and Abound LLC. In 2003, he became self-employed as a fine-artist and designer. Currently he has a studio in his hometown, Bainbridge Island expanding it and working on sculptures, canvas pieces, and furniture.
I personally am enthralled with his work. I love other artist’s work where I can just look at and be like "How did they come up with that…how come I haven’t come up with something like that?" which pretty much drives and inspires me. And acrylics is what interests me the most, considering I don’t believe Im very good with it, but I would like to be better at it. My style is cartooneque with an extremely small mix of realism. And its all in pencil sadly to say, which of course I’m proud of my ideas and work, I would just like to broaden my horizons and Blaine Fontana and other artists have inspired me to try new things and acrylic painting is something I’d like to work on and actually get good at. This semester id like to get a good handle on Acrylic painting with fresh ideas I want to lay down.
http://www.blainefontana.com/
posted for Christian L.
Georgia's Artist: Danny Clinch
"Media is Photography."
Danny Clinch was born in Tom’s river, New Jersey in 1964. Clinch photographs musical groups and individuals. His work has appeared on many album covers and inter art for bands like Foo Fighters, Metallica, Jack Johnson and Tupac. His work has also appeared in magazines and directed in films. Clinch attended Ocean County Community College in Tom’s river, New Jersey for two years and during that time decided he wanted to be a photographer. He transferred to The New England School of Photography in Boston for two years. Clinch graduated in 1985 and joined two photographic workshops. Bruce Davidson's "The Photograph as a Document," and The Ansel Adams Workshop in Yosemite where he worked with Annie Liebowitz. In 1986 he was invited to intern for her and worked his way up to becoming full time assistant. While there he got opportunities to travel the country and direct films. Clinch frequently uses his 35mm Leica and currently has a gallery exhibition in Washington DC with his work throughout his career.
I like this photograph Clinch took of Jack Johnson because, you can see the reflection in the window and door of what is behind him. I also like how he included the surfboards on the ceiling and how the shadows are on the floor and walls all point to Johnson. I also like the angle he took the photograph and how he portioned everything to be evenly spaced to create a sense of balance and unity while still having the reflections on the windows and door.
http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/clinch/biographya.html
James Jean
James Jean is a celebrated artist who has won many awards for his work. He's won seven Eisner awards, three consecutive Harvey awards, two gold medals and a silver from the Society of Illustrators of LA, and a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators of NY for his work as a DC Comic cover artist. James was born in 1979 in Tiawan, but he was raised in Parsipanny-Troy Hills, New Jersey, after High School James Jean enrolled at the School of Visual Arts in New York where he graduated from in 2001 after which he quickly became an acclaimed cover artist for DC Comics. James uses such things as acrylics, charcoal, chalk and pencils for his artwork. James has an interesting art style, in his non-comic related artwork he retains the comic book art stlye while having serious and adult overtones/images. His work has is astounding, though it tends to be a bit darker and creepier it has tons of symbolism and details throughout each peice he creates, his art style tends to be clean, though he has used more of a sketch like approach to his artwork once in a while. James Jean artwork inspires me to further myself and my artwork to push my boundaries and limits, and to try and develop my artwork to a level (eventually) to a level equal or above his own. I think his artwork will influence my own throughout the year as I try to develop my own style even more than I have already.
James Jean's Website: http://www.jamesjean.com/
Michelangelo Buonarroti
“Pieta” is one of many famous works by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564), depicting the image of the body of Jesus being held by his mother, Mary. Michelangelo both painted and sculpted during the renaissance with amazing accuracy and detail of the human figure. His work often emphasizes the slightly exaggerated posture of figures in order to communicate the emotions of various biblical scenes. Michelangelo chiefly worked with marble for his sculpting, having lived with a stone-cutter during his pre-teen years and his father owning a marble quarry. He grudgingly took up fresco-style painting when commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which took him four years to complete. He was actually originally commissioned to just paint the twelve apostles in the chapel, but opted for a much more complicated scheme which ended up including over 300 figures, essentially depicting the whole of the Catholic/Christian faith. Michelangelo is also famous for sculpting the statue of “David”.
This guy is the most amazing artist I have ever seen! Even his “rough” sketches of the human figure are astounding in their detail and accuracy. You can tell he definitely has a profound understanding of the human body, its muscle tone, bone structure, everything. Just look at his depiction of Pieta, I swear he made that fabric all wrinkly just so he could show off how insanely talented he was, fabric wrinkles are insanely hard to do accurately. I admire how real his work feels. This is cold, hard, chiseled marble we’re looking at, not actual people sitting there. I love how much feeling is shown through the stance and body language of the figures in his work. I rarely work with sculpting or oil paints, but I hope that my work this year will be even a tiny bit as successful at communicating emotionally through composition, posture, etc. as his is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo#Early_life
http://www.abcgallery.com/M/michelangelo/michelangelo.html
SABER MSK AWR
Salvador Dali
Greg "Craola" Simkins
His Website!
August Macke
Blog Assignment due Friday, 9/12
1. Post a photo of one of the artist's pieces and describe the style & medium.
2. Describe the artist and his or her work. Be sure to use very descriptive words when you write about the artwork. Include facts (name, year of birth & death, style, art movement if applicable, media, etc.).
3. THEN, give a personal reflection on the work. Tell us...
- What do you think of it? DETAILS please (i.e., "I
like it because..." or "It makes me feel ____"). - How is this similar or different from what you
do? - How might this influence your work this
semester?
4. Lastly, give a link or two to show us where you got your information.
Due Friday, 9/12
Dang =/
So it shows up as Frinja because that's the name I made before.
I suppose either I need to find out if I can change that name to Amanda J or if i need to use a different email.