Figure Drawing Part 2

Part 2, students create sketches in pencil, charcoal, and colored chalk on manila paper by looking at student models.  They start with the skeleton, add bulk, clothing, and details.

Figure Drawing Part 1

 I attempted figure drawing this year! Part 1, students folded a paper in 8ths and drew the skeleton showing that figures are "8 heads" tall and have a series of joints connected by muscle and bones.

Still life

I love this simple colorful still life.  This was a one day exercise in practicing blocking out values.

Best of Portraits

I've featured some great portraits on here before so this time, I want to look at portraits that were successful for other reasons.

Class critiques have not always gone well for me. Students don't want to share their work, they don't want to talk about another student's work, sometimes they can't explain why they like or don't like something; I've come to dread critiques to the point of avoiding them. After watching a teacher at another school do a class critique with his middle school students, I was inspired to try again. This time, I put up EVERYONE's artwork on the board (the artwork was not quite finished, it was due that day) and had students choose a work that they liked because something in it worked really well- I explained that the entire picture might not be good, but the texture of the hair, or shading on the eyes, might be excellent and worthy of praise. After stating what worked well, we chose something that needed attention or needed to be fixed during the class period. I also included a drawing I did so that they could choose my artwork to comment on if they were shy to talk about another students' work.

It was miraculous, after the first few comments, students began opening up and discussing each other's work (and often times they picked their own to critique) and giving great advice on what to work on and applying successful techniques in their own work.

The two artworks below are two that completely transformed after the critique. While they do not look exactly like the celebrity they were trying to draw, they are great efforts. Tupac is shaded in such a unique smokey way (he added the background shading after the critique), and Rihanna has such careful highlights and shadows using erasers and smudging. Great efforts. I also included my work in process that they critiqued of Keyshia Cole.

One last shoe

Here is one more shoe. This student has been working on it for weeks, and it shows. Can't wait for him to finally finish...

Shoes

Here are some "best of" shoe drawings from this semester displayed in my classroom.

Van Gogh meets DC

Although this artwork might not be the most skilled drawing, I love how she combined the imagery and style of Van Gogh with the landscape of DC. This is from last semester.

Safe Space

I'm proud to say I joined a support team at school that supports LGBT students! According to our team leader, Ballou is one of the last schools to implement the safe space initiative. In our meeting, the team leader gave us a small summary of what it means to be a safe space teacher and why it is important. I am not going to try and remember the exact statistics the team leader gave us, he impressed upon us that LGBT students are at a higher risk for harassment and bullying and that the rate of LGBT teen suicide is greater. While I'm always pushing for a positive learning community in my room, I'm glad the entire school is now supporting that effort. This couldn't come at a better time then now when this type of bullying is so prevalent in our local and national news.

Field Trip to Smithsonian American Art Museum

A week or two ago, I invited a group of 15 students to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. SAAM is a favorite DC museum of mine for so many reasons- the beautiful courtyard, folk art area, the Luce center and open storage space, and the fun contemporary art (Nam June Paik, seen on the right)- but this field trip gave me a new reason to love them. First their field trips are free for DCPS AND more importantly, they provide FREE BUSES! Amazing! Once we arrived at the museum, we broke into small groups and my group had a fabulous docent. Unfortunately, I can't remember her name but she was incredibly knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and flexible. My student were super enthusiastic and happy to be at the museum commenting on literally every artwork they saw. In this way, we were a bit of a difficult group because everyone was so excited and wanted to talk about everything!! Our tour guide went with it and jumped around from work to work, imparting basic art history facts and art making techniques. She was creative and engaged asking questions like "What kind of sound would this artwork make?" in reference to a Clyfford Still work of abstract expressionism. I was impressed with her ability to both encourage the students' enthusiasm and focus them on specific works. In an hour, we saw the entire museum and looked at probably around 20 specific artworks. Bravo SAAM! What a great tour.

While every student in my group was engaged, there was one student, I will call him Brandon, who was following the tour but not as vocal as the others. In fact he did not speak during the entire tour. At the very end of the tour, the guide took us into one of the small SAAM elevators to transport us down to the ground level. The elevator was really small and we had to squeeze inside. At this moment, I finally hear Brandon make a comment to the group. And what does he say? "Damn, this elevator is small as sh*t!!" I had to laugh- sometimes its the little things on these field trips that students remember.

As promised

Here are the artist inspired artworks from last semester. Aren't they amazing? Can you guess which artist was inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe? Tim Conlon? Andy Warhol? Vincent Van Gogh?

Love.

Aaaand we're back!

I am happy to report that I have a new camera and once again will be updating my blog! We've done so much in the past few months it is hard to summarize it all. In the next few posts I will try to address somethings we have done.

30 American @ the Corcoran:

A group of about 30 Ballou students went on a field trip with me, Mr Goudas (the other art teacher), and Ms Givens (the photo teacher). 30 Americans was an amazing exhibit featuring the artworks of approximately 30 African Americans who have made art in the past 30 or so years. Some of the art was politically charged and most of the art explored the African American experience. It included some of my favorite artists- 2 beautiful Kehinde Wiley's, an expansive Kara Walker, and a Shinique Smith installation. I was impressed that while the docent spoke on a college level, my students rose to the occasion and engaged with her answering and asking dynamic questions. Some times I focus on meeting them where they are (academically) and I don't challenge them to make the leap up to a college level. My favorite part of the trip was when I had a conversation with one student I'll call Tom that went something like this:

Tom: "Ms S, I like the artwork here but I don't feel any different about being black after seeing this exhibit. We always learn about slavery and racism and I get it but it doesn't make me feel different."

Ms S: "As an artist yourself Tom, do you think that you will always be seen as a 'black' artist (meaning that he will be pigeon-holed into exhibiting only with other black artists or shows that address black issues) or do you think we are past that and you can just be an artist?"

Tom: "Ms S, we are past that! Race doesn't matter, I'm just an artist."

I hope Tom is right.