PItt State High School Art Day

On April 10th I took a group of 9 students over to Pitt State for High School Art Day. We did a couple of warm up activities, making a story from Pictionary drawings, and then we got started on one of the two big projects for the day.  The topic for the day was circus themed because of the work by Ariel Bowman that was currently in the gallery at PSU.  I did a little post on her work earlier that you can find here and I strongly encourage you to look up Ariel Bowman’s work.  

Ariel Bowman

The group was tasked with making a cardboard sculpture related to the circus.  We were told about the competition and the topic ahead of time so we already had in mind what we were going to do.  It helped a ton that some of my students had already seen the exhibition on a previous trip.  We came up with the idea of an elephant on a stand.  

I was a little nervous at the midway point that they were not going to have enough time to pull it together.  We only had an hour and a half.  Interestingly, we were one of two groups that actually used the cardboard as the main focus of the sculpture.  I guess a lot of other schools brought in a lot of extras to add to the sculpture and really only used the cardboard as a structure.  

Humphrey

My older students did a great job of taking control and tasking the other members with jobs.  They worked really hard at each of their given jobs which was pretty tough considering that all these different parts had to match up and come together as one sculpture in the end.  

After the sculptures we went to lunch.  Coming back their challenge was to draw one of the other students in our group as a circus performer.  The students were given pictures of old vintage circus posters as inspiration.  We were given about an hour and a half to do this drawing.  

Morgan Chilcott - Senior - Art IV

Holly Black - Junior - Art III

Here are a few examples of the kids drawings when we were done.  Not bad for an hour and half worth of work in my opinion.  I brought students from all different levels of art classes which I worried would intimidate my Art I students.  They stuck it out and performed greatly though.  

Michael Shinkle's drawing of me - Freshman - Art I

Peyton Hearn - Junior - Art III

Alyssa Troy - Senior - Art IV

Great day with a lot of fun.  It is always great to go back and see my old faculty at PSU.

8th Grade Drawing Improvement

Alya Whitaker

The past few weeks I have had several classes working on different assignments where they complete a pre-assessment drawing at the beginning of the unit and another, post assessment drawing, at the end.  I hold onto the first drawing during the whole process.  Typically the students are very shocked to see how much they improved.  As I pull out the pre-assessment drawing most of the kids are making comments along the lines of “Like, I totally bet I didn’t improve, like, at all” (I imagine most of my students saying that like a Kardashian).  

Makayla May

Aly Potter

First up is 8th Grade Art.  At the beginning of the semester I make the 8th Grade do a plant drawing just to assess where their drawing ability is.  Nine weeks later I then have them do another one just so they can see how much they have grown in ability.  I have yet to have a student, who did the assignment with effort, not improve over the nine weeks.  

Bree Reynolds

Jadin Reese

Probably my favorite part of seeing the before and afters is the fact that they they actually draw the plant the second time.  I think during the first round a lot of the students think the stool or pot is easier so they focus on that instead of the plant.

Aiden Cox

Maddy Tomlinson

Also another big improvement, that almost everyone does, is to utilize their space better.  You see a lot of kids with little drawings that only take up about one tenth of their paper.  I could have given them a Post-It note and there would have probably still been too much space around the edges.  Now however most of them are real good about running the drawing off the edge of the picture plane and creating some nice negative shapes.  

Mayson Cole

Hailey Dougherty 

Honors Society Heads to an Artist Lecture

Art Honors Society recently took a trip up to Pittsburg State University to listen to a lecture by Ariel Bowman about her work being exhibited in the Art Departments Gallery.  Very well done lecture.  I really loved watching the evolution, pun intended, of her work and how it all becomes interrelated.  We spent about an hour listening to her lecture on her work and her influences.  Combining the theme of a circus, something that is disappearing from our culture, with these prehistoric creatures that are already past creates a powerful image.  Personally, I love the muted palette of colors and the textures of these creatures.  Many of the circus features look as if these beasts have been wearing these garments since the time they would have existed. 

Borrowed from www.arielbowman.com

Each creature has so much detail and texture that you can’t help but feel the weight these massive animals would have had.  The beasts have incredible detail and little rewards for those people that take the time to inspect sculptures in detail.  She has an amazing ability to bring these brutes to life with her ceramics.  

She uses steel pipes, used for plumbing, as an understructure during the building process.  She says she prefers solid building these and then carving out the middle before firing.  Not being a 3D person myself it would be better to ask her yourself at www.arielbowman.com for a more detailed process of how she makes these.

Ariel was very receptive to questions and interaction.  Which is great because one of our NAHS students was very curious about the work.  There was a great back and forth between Holly and Ariel about her artwork.  This is exactly what I want to see when I bring these students to these kind of events.  Ariel even encouraged Holly to contact her through Facebook or email and seemed very approachable if Holly had any questions in the future.  

Ariel and Holly talking the talk

8th Grade Cityscapes

Areal-K Davisson

My 8th graders just finished up their assignments on two point perspective.  For their assessment I had them create their very own cityscape using two point perspective.  Some of the examples below are a bit bare as a far as details go but the perspective is pretty spot on.  I was also impressed with the amount of shading added in these drawings.  I definitely think that doing value and shading before the perspective assignments this semester paid off.  Overall very impressive work for my 8th graders.  I am eager to work more with them over the next few years.  

John Wallace

Makayla May

Alya Whittaker

Mayson Cole

Maddy Tomlinson

Aly Potter

Jadin Reese

Hailey Doughtery 

Aiden Cox

A Glance at Art IV...

My Art IV students have been quietly plucking away at their own work.  All of them are working on different kinds of paintings at the moment.  All of these paintings are still a work in progress but I think it is important to spotlight these so we can see how they evolve over the rest of the semester.  

Alyssa Troy

Up first we have Alyssa Troy who has been working in acrylic paint.  Although I give her a hard time about using the Junior Varsity paints (because obviously oil is superior), these paintings are coming along very nicely.  I should really make a point to take photos of their in-process work on a regular basis.  It is amazing to come in, step behind Alyssa’s easel, and see just how much can change from week to week.  

Alyssa Troy

I particularly love the way in this one the lion is not defined along the outside.  He is sort of concealed or faded in a mysterious haze/mist of some kind.

Colton Hearn

Next up is Colton Hearn.  He has been working on some hard edged paintings in acrylic.  The topics have been awfully random but it is easy to tell that he draws a lot of influence from modern movies and shows he is currently watching.  

Colton Hearn

He has another one of Dexter Morgan looking at a blood slide but it is not coming out right in a photo for some reason.

Morgan Chilcott

Morgan Chilcott is the last of my Art IV students.  She has been giving oil painting a shot.  I think that ranks her above both the other two based solely on principle.  Even if she was just rotten at painting, which I think you can tell is not the case, she automatically wins.

Morgan Chilcott

Morgan’s main focus has pretty much just improving her painting ability.  She started out by focusing on paintings that were value only. After she started to get the hang of it some then she moved on to adding some color.  She could also add color over the top of her black and white paintings if she ever wanted to in the future.  

Her last painting is a nice self portrait as a zombie.  She is still trying to figure out what to do with the background but I am confident with the process so far.

Morgan Chilcott

Luckily both Alyssa and Morgan have this sitting right above them on a daily basis to motivate them.  No mistakes, just happy accidents.

Masks Part II

Avery Wood

So the Art I students have finally finished up their masks. I think some people may have looked at the first post and been a little worried that these would not have turned out as awesome as they did.  

Jillian Canterbury

Lily Gonzalez

We took a break from these to do some painting so I could make sure my students understood basic color mixing.  They did a graffiti color wheel which I may highlight in another post.

Bailey Wells 

Taylor Gentry

Michael Shinkle

For the assignment I gave the students the option to have these masks be actually functional.  Many of the examples I gave them were historical which were not very functional because they might have been pulled out only once a year for a festival of some sorts.  So, like Michael, several students made theirs more for hanging on the wall and less for actual wearing.  

Austin Odell

Carson Leck

Johnna Dunham

Kayla Kinsman 

I now have Advanced Art students beginning to start theirs so I may share those when they are finished.