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.  

Cutpaper with Lights

So at the end of last semester I decided to try and make an assignment out of some artwork I happened across on the internet.  I recently wandered across some artwork by Deepti Nair and Harikrishnan at the following link: Hari and Deepti - This is Colossal . Just to give you a small teaser if you don’t click the link above this is one of their pieces:  

I thought it would be interesting to turn this into an assignment.  This took some work on the students part because we were both problem solving together.  I made one myself but I was making it at the same time so many of the roadblocks we had were new to both of us.  The final product was hit or miss for some students but everyone put in a lot of effort.  What was nice to see was students tackling a problem without much input from me.  They just had to figure it out much like I was.  

Clio Dulaney

I really enjoyed putting them through this because this is often how actual artists work.  Having the end goal in mind and try to work out all the kinks through experimentation and perseverance is what making art is all about.  Typically as an artist, you don’t sit around trying to recreate the same thing over and over again.  Most of the work you create is going to be new or altered in some way, whether in idea or media, and that presents new problems.

Kyle Savage

Bo Grimes - Here you can see where Bo during the phase where everything is still taped down.

Working through this we used tagboard because it was very sturdy and would hold itself up.  We used strips of scrap mat board as spacers in between the layers of cut paper. Once the layers were cut we used simple masking tape first to get an idea of what the finished project would look like.

Philip Porter

Later we glued in the final product.  We used christmas lights for the back lighting.  We could have used LED strips as well.  It was christmas season though so it was just readily available to pick up a small strip of lights.  

Overall this wasn’t too bad of an experience.  It took much longer than I had anticipated however.  Making one myself and having that under my belt will help if we choose to do this assignment in the future.  That will allow me to outline the process better before they tackle it instead of working through it together.  

Holly Black

Mask Structures

Johnna Dunham

Right now my Art I classes are finishing up the structures for their masks.  This project, the way we do it, takes some time so I have the project broken up into two parts.  The first part is just focusing on the structure of the mask. The skin of the mask is done as a separate grade afterwards.  For now let us focus on the structure.  The assignment started off with me presenting to them all kinds of different styles of masks.  Their assignment is then to sketch out three examples of masks all in the same style that they would like to make.  These different styles could be from specific cultures or even one they made up.  When I can I will provide the sketches along with the masks.  

Johnna Dunham

Dominic Skinner

I had a lot of students execute some really amazing masks.  On the whole I had most of the students really put in a lot of time and effort into their maks.  Even without the finished painting of the masks I have some great things to share.  

A big part of this assignment was translating their sketches into masks.  Taking something you created in two dimensions and making it into a three dimensional structure comes with a lot of challenges.  Form, think shape but for 3-D objects, was a huge issue for many students to contend with.  They had to visualize how their sketches would actually stick out and have depth.  

Taylor Gentry

Taylor Gentry

Lily Gonzalez

Lily Gonzalez

We used paper mache over a hardware cloth understructure.  A few just used cardboard as their understructure but most of them grab onto the ¼” hardware cloth with great ease.  It bends great and has amazing strength.  You can also cut the hardware cloth easy with wire cutters and add stuff back with a little wire.  

Avery Wood

Many of the masks you see on here have a lot of layers of newspaper on them.  With the added glue some of them even feel like they were carved from wood which is pretty impressive.  

Jillian Canterbury

Several people went with the masquerade mask theme which I find to be one of the more difficult styles.  I think most kids start it thinking they will be easy but they are so small and delicate that you really don’t have much room for error.  The smallest mess up is very noticeable sometimes.  

I had several people come up with some very different “styles” for their masks.  Two of my most well done ones so far are also the most different.  Michael Shinkle did his with a steampunk idea in mind and I have to say it is coming along greatly.

Michael Shinkle

Michael Shinkle

Also special note for Austin Odell’s.  He wanted to base his off the masks for the movie “The Purge.”  When he wears his with his hood up I have to say I am really impressed.  

Austin Odell

Austin Odell

Overall very impressed.  I am eager to see how their painting of the masks go.  The quality is so good right now that I think some of my advanced students have been whining about wanting to do some as well.  I will try and give them a crack at later but they have a high bar set for them right now.

Kayla Kinsman

Justin VanFossen

NAHS Trip to Pittsburg

Recently I took a few of the National Art Honors Society students over to Pittsburg State University.  They were having a reception for the faculty show called “Assembly Required.”  The work exhibited was artwork all created by the art faculty working in the hallowed halls of Porter Hall.  The reception was on November 21st but the show will be up in the gallery until January 23rd.

This was a great opportunity for the NAHS to get out and get some experience in a gallery setting.  They got to meet the artists that were there and talk about their artwork.  They were a bit timid at first but they started to get the hang of it after bit of nudging in the right direction.  

Out of my National Art Honors Society I brought Morgan Chilcott, Holly Black, and Alyssa Troy.  Not present was Peyton Hearn, who had some silly excuse about work? I don’t know about that kid sometimes, but he needs to sort out his priorities.

I hope to continue going to similar shows in the area when possible.  It would be nice to expose the Honors Society to genuine art experiences as much as possible. In settings like this they don’t necessarily have to be wearing the student hat all the time and can just interact with other artists. If any of them do end up going on in art post high school it will be great practice for them in the networking department, which may just be the real skill to possess in the art world.  In just this one night they not only got to meet artists but college faculty members, the gallery director, and the chair of the department .  A great majority of these teachers I got the priviledge of working under when I was there. This was a great opportunity for our NAHS members to meet some possible contacts in the future.

Even if they do not go on in art, they will atleast have some indication of the opportunities to go see art in adult life.  After high school, if they don’t go to college for art, they will be seeing art either in museums or shows like this. 

Afterwards I showed them around the building as much as possible.  They got to see some of the studios that the college courses are taught in.  Hopefully we can continue to make similar trips throughout the year to expose the NAHS members to as much art as we can out in its natural, wild habitat.

It is probably worth noting that I did steal most of these photos from Rhona Shand McBain's, the chair of the art department, Facebook page.