Artists Steal

Here is a look at some of the project, some still in progress, from our Artists Steal unit. Our artists could borrow, steal, appropriate or intertextualize (is that even a word?) to create their final works. Above, the Scream has a zipper for a mouth. See how many of the following you can "get".

Answering Essential Questions: part 2

Our latest unit, Artists Answer Essential Questions asked our students to first consider a word and then ask questions about the word. Once students developed their questions, they were tasked with responding to their own question by creating a work of art. Media determined by the artists. You can view a other responses to essential questions here.

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Above: Banana Corn

"The word i chose was societal standards. Everyone is different, however society likes to put everyone into boxes and label us. We have to know every detail about ourselves, and if they don't fit into the nicely labeled boxes then we have to conceal them in order to fit in. It's like trying to fit a triangle in a square hole. It doesn't work. This poses the question, "How do societal standards effect individuals?" I tried to represent this question by taking multiple of one object and throwing in an object that is clearly different but trying to appear the same as the others." ~ Sarah

 a Target brand crayon box to look like it was Crayola

This image never existed.

The word I chose for this project was temporary, and my question is "Can art truly be temporary if it is captured by photos?" The purpose for the artwork to only last for a short while or only be seen by few people is completely destroyed if that artist keeps a picture of the piece. The medium I used for this piece is a product called Buddha Board which is a surface that turns black when painted on with water. As the water evaporates from the canvas, the image slowly fades- lasting only temporarily. I wanted the concept of ephemerality to reappear in the subject of the piece also, so I drew the life cycle of a monarch butterfly. I grided my drawing of the life cycle and painted each square on the Buddha Board one at a time and then took a photo. Then, I put all the photos together to recreate the original drawing as a collage." ~ Tess

They will never be that exact age ever again...

"For my essential question I came up with, "How is youth captured in photography?". I used water color and pen ink to make the Polaroid camera words and photos. Then I mounted them on a piece on illustration board painted black. I used the baby pictures of multiple people to show how their youth is captured in photographs. And they will never be that exact age ever again except in that photograph." ~Brooke

Change

"The question I chose to use was "What evokes change?". One answer to what evokes change is wanting to fit in and be accepted. To show this, I decided to to use a caterpillar hanging off a branch getting ready to make a chrysalis. This shows the caterpillar getting ready to change. I also chose to put butterflies around the caterpillar to show what influences the caterpillar to change.  Someone said this idea reminded them of the ugly duckling which I agree with." ~ Maddy

No response

"The past couple of months I've been a ball of anxiety and espresso. between school, work, college plans, and planning now two foreign mission trips my to do list has been thoroughly packed and some things just haven't made the cut. one of  those things being art, i didn't put time, energy or the mental capacity aside for doing any art. so when this project was introduced it was another thing i had to do and i disregarded it and put it in the back of the line. 

No i did not have a question to inspire this piece, and i love that. my life and everything i have going on requires questions and/or answers and quite frankly i don't have all of the answers and that stresses me. the reason for this project was to avoid questions, have it clean, simple and organized so the viewer may take it as they perceive it." ~ Rachel

How has beauty evolved?

"For my project, I chose the word "beauty". At first, I wanted to do a portrait of a young, beautiful woman but eventually changed my idea to do something completely different. My question changed to "How has beauty evolved?"; so I decided to do an evolution of makeup from the 1920s to the present day, 2015.

I wanted to do this project because a lot of people underestimate makeup, or cosmetics, to be a kind of art. Many techniques we learn in class can also be applied to the human face; like contouring, shading, value, lines, color, etc. By researching about the different styles of makeup, I applied certain eyeshadow colors, foundation colors, and variations of lines on her face." ~ Poorna

Purpose

"What makes us useless? Are people born useless? Are there objects in life that are useless? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that everything is useless until given a purpose. I thought of different examples like how a seed turns into a flower or how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly and how they were once nothing special, but now something beautiful and purposeful. My favorite idea was how an ugly, fat pig turns into delicious, beautiful bacon." ~ Girl 2

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark!

As we head into our next unit, Artists Steal, I thought it might be a good time to learn a very important art rule... Don't be afraid of the dark!

Yes, contrast can be our friend but sometimes art students can be a little intimidated by the dark. For this two day value and shading bootcamp, we "stole" a portrait we were interested in duplicating.

"What!? You just snagged a pic off the net?" Well, yes. Because this is a workshop on contrast and little else. Focus people.

So here is a look at few of these exercises. This group had no problem and I'm pretty sure from now on none of them will be afraid of the dark.

Answering Essential Questions

"And Then What?"

Our latest unit, Artists Answer Essential Questions asked our students to first consider a word and then ask questions about the word. For example, the word "Cute". What are the characteristics that make something cute? When is something not cute? Can something be cute and creepy ant the same time?

Once students developed their questions, they were tasked with responding to their own question by creating a work of art. Media determined by the artists. Here are a few works, some still in progress...

Why Are You Fake?

What Seems so Big Seems so Small?

How it Would Look to Live Meraki?

Can You Hear Me Now?

Can I Face My Fears?

Can Light Create Darkness?

Welcome to Tantamount!

I stole this idea from Diane Jaquith who did a similar project she titled Tantalize. She stole the idea from a NYC group who did a project called Tantamounter. The basic concept the group came up with.. there is a slot in a door. You enter an item into the door and a little while later you get your item back along with a work of art that is tantamount to the original piece. Here's how we did it...

I stopped by the english teacher's class last week and told him about the idea. I asked if he would collect things from his class. He fulfilled his end of the bargain...

When the Art One class enter today, I explained the rules. You have one class period to create a tantamount piece. ... So I guess I mean I explained the rule. OK go!

They dove in head first. It was a lot of fun and at the end of class we had completed all the pieces. We're excited to hand this all back over to the english class.

What's in your Locker?

After an entire unit exploring space (perspective, forced perspective, positive and negative space, stencils, etc) we decided to close out the unit wit ha look at installation art. What do installation artists do? Well, they take a pre-existing space and change it using their artist abilities. 

As crowded as Apex has been, there are some spaces that are simply underutilized. In particular the lockers. In a school as large as ours, it's just not practical for students to stash their books in a locker. Not when their other classes are on the other side of campus. So the lockers remain empty. empty, until this week.

Assignment: You have a locker and it is a space. Change the space. Create an installation in a locker. here are some of the results...

Disney

the theme is Meme!

Above: Close up of the Nightmare

The Nightmare: Person in bed below dreams of nightmare above.

In progress, the Balloon Ride

The Asylum

The bottom scene of a two part locker: Heaven and Hell

the Volcano

A take on the short clip: the Maker