Drawing & Painting Fall 2009
Students taking Drawing & Painting have all taken the prerequisite Studio Art course. You should all have many of the basics in art down and be ready to move on to more sophisticated project work. We will follow the typical format of art classes at NRW, meaning that about 75% of your grade will be based on long term projects, the remainder of your grade will come from by-weekly notebook assignment and sketchbook work. Toward this end, all students need to buy a journaling/sketchbook for these assignments. The book should be at least 4 X 6 inches with blank pages to write and draw on. You are expected to keep a copy of your assignment sheet in here, to use it for a tool to develop ideas and to keep your written critiques and images for references in this book.
During the year, we will be working in tech pen, colored pencil, paint, pencil, charcoal, conte crayon, and pastel. All of these media will be available in the classroom but because of the sizes of the classes, no materials will be allowed out of the classroom.(This is because I do not have enough supplies to give them to everyone to take home.) The room will be available during the day and after school every day except for Wednesdays, (as much as possible). It would be a good idea for students to purchase some of these supplies so they can get work done at home. I will have catalogues available for students to order supplies from and I can also make suggestions for places that students can get supplies from for the most reasonable cost. Students are encouraged to use any and all supplies for their journaling/sketchbooking. For long term project work, they may want to use classroom supplies when they can as the quality of the supplies can make a big difference on the final outcome of the piece. Remember, all these supplies will be available in the room. If students can use their time well in the classroom, they may not need to bring their long term project work home.
Students will be asked to write critiques on artwork every week. Students are expected to look at professional work that is similar to what they are doing in class. These images may be from the internet or from art books and magazines, many available in the art room. Each student is asked to write a critical essay about this work using their art vocabulary. These exercises encourage students to look carefully at a variety of pieces of art and help them to develop a vocabulary with which they may discuss the work. For me to grade this assignment, I need them to supply me with a copy of the piece of art work they are writing about. This is an important part of each student’s grade. The assignments are due every other week and must be done at home. Also, students are expected to prepare for their projects at home. Although they will get very little take home assignments, they are expected to use the class time (I call it studio time) to produce the work. The ideas should be developed at home. All assignments will be available on docushare on the Art Department sight under Mrs. Teska.
Assignments
- Sketchbooks/journals: Students will begin by creating their first sketchbook. We will then use a variety of materials to create surfaces in the books to make landscape drawings.
- We will begin every class day doing drawing warm-ups. All of these will be turned in for a sketching grade. Initially, the warm up drawings will be landscape and nature.
- Tile Making: For the fall exhibition, every artist will be making a tile. These tiles will be installed in the courtyard outside the foyer. The requirements are as follows:
- The tiles may be any rectangular shape but not bigger than 12” X 12”
- Tile techniques may include: carving or incising, building layers, creating a mold, slip trailing (similar to stained glass)
- Subject matter should be one of the following: local history, flora, fauna, sports, crops, activities, landmarks, historical figures. The idea is to have our community reflected somehow in the tiles that decorate our courtyard. The imagery should be simple and design like.
- All tiles are to be made for a walkway for a courtyard. All tiles will be donated to the school for the courtyard.
- Color and imagery will be done using high fire glazes or oxide washes with clear glaze - References: Moravia Pottery Tiles
These must be done in time for the Open House Exhibition, October 22nd .
- Contour Line Drawin: Students will explore contour and blind contour drawing to warm up at the beginning of each class. Students will be drawing from observation using a variety of drawing media.
- Subtractive landscape: Using pastel and erasers, students will complete a landscape drawing from observation. Each student will start by covering a piece of paper with soft, smudgy pastel. The landscape image will emerge from the smudges by using and eraser. The forms may be developed further by adding darker areas.
- Look at pg 90 in Discovering Drawing to see an example. You may use this as a critique also.
- My Personal Space: Create a fold out piece that explores your closet, your school locker or your gym locker or another personal space. Take photographs of the space you want to use for references. Peruse the sketchbooking texts for ideas for surfaces and use of text.
Requirements:
- must include photographic rendering of some objects
- must use color and altered backgrounds
-must have a minimum of 4 pages
- must include prose or poetry ...words that are applicable to the imagery
- must include working “doors” of some kind and at least two other flip out or pull up features
- you are encouraged to use a variety of materials to create the book including:
dried flowers or leaves, paint, pencils, colored pencils, pastels, gesso, stamps, stencils, found objects, altered photographs, stickers, tranfers of all kinds
- Self Portrait Exploration: Students will do 6-8 different simple line self portraits. They will choose one of the drawings and make copies of them. The images will then be explored using a variety of different media. Each student will do at least 5 exploratory pieces using the same drawing. Students are encouraged to consider color, texture, and line as they develop these pieces. The exploratory pieces will include: one charcoal drawing, one rendered pencil drawing, one painted portrait, one piece in the style of a famous artist, and one done in their choice of media and style. The best pieces will be mounted together.
Along with these assignments, we will be doing daily exercises in class including gesture drawing, still life drawing, charcoal sketching and worksheets on facial features. These will all be handed in for grading.
Students may also opt to take part in “The Memory Project”, an opportunity for high school art students to do portraits of orphans from other countries.
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