Earth Works : Art One & Sculpture

Before it gets too cold Ms. Sudkamp's Art 1 & Sculpture classes completed a Land Art project.

We first checked out an amazing video by Tony Plant.  This helped the students understand why art is created as well as introducing the idea of it being temporary.  My Art 1 classes worked together as a table to create their pieces whereas the sculpture class worked individually.  It was nice to see how their approaches to the project were so different.

Land Art  Lesson

Student Spotlight: Genna - Art Three

Intertextuality:Crossing the Yellow Brick Road

  Some of my ideas while making this piece was: Rondald Mcdonald on a scale eating veggies, a can of beans with the Chicago Bean in it, and Mickey mouse with a gun. I chose to do a cross walk sign with Dorothy and The Tin Man. By just adding a few small images to the cross walk sign (the ruby shoes, Tin Man's heart, Tin hat, and the yellow bricks) I changed the message of the cross walk sign. It went from a regular cross walk sign's meaning: to watch out for pedestrians crossing the street, to a different kind of cross walk sign's meaning: to watch out for the characters of The Wizard of Oz when they cross the Yellow Brick Road. 

  

I used a wood board and cut it into the shape of a cross walk sign. I painted this board yellow with yellow enamel to make it have a shiny finish like a normal cross walk sign. For the crosswalk people I made a stencil and spray painted them black. I used a stencil technique for this piece. For this technique I had to use sticks to hold down the part of the stencil that I was spray painting to make sure there were no fuzzy lines.

   The risk I took was I spent so much time making my cross walk sign accurate before I spray painted the Dorothy shoes and Tin hat on it so taking that step was a big risk in case I made a mistake on the sign and had to start over. I used technique with the accurate cross walk sign and stencil making and spray painting. I also used concept in my piece from turning it from one message to a completely different meaning with the use just a few small images. 

The "Student Spotlight" posts are excerpts taken from our student blogs. 

You can see more of Genna's work here!

You can see all our student blogs here!

Adobe Illustrator : Vector Images

Adobe Illustrator is a program we’ve not spent a lot of time using here at apex HS. Each semester I try to add another tutorial and this semester I gave an actual project. So this is the first time an apex Computer Art class has worked on their own vector illustration using Illustrator.

I wanted to leave the assignment fairly wide open to give the students the opportunity to explore the app the way they felt most comfortable. In doing so, I received a wide variety or final projects. Here are some of the results..

 

Mr Sands First Quarter Check

Wow! We've completed our first quarter! And yes, this is the first quarter for all of us. For Ms Sudkamp and Ms Purtee it is their first quarter teaching at Apex! For Ms Rossi, this is the first year Apex has had an AP class, a tremendous accomplishment. For myself, this is my first year teaching Art Three.

I believe firmly that one of the best ways to grow and improve is to periodically look at where one has come from and set goals towards where one would like to go. With that in mind, I would like to share two of the things I have learned and suggest places I could improve.

Areas of Growth:

1. Though I have always leaned heavily in the direction, this is the first time I have placed emphasis on "choice" in the art room when planning lessons. It is exciting to see the variety of projects,  media and expressions the kids are coming up with. I want to continue to encourage  this in my program as I believe it bolsters authentic art making.

2. This year has opened my eyes to the many different planning styles of the students. While some are upfront planners making lists and creating thumbnails, others need to experiment with material before they decide on a direction. I am learning to be more open to the different needs of my students and to adjust accordingly.

Areas for Improvement:

1. The more students know what materials are available to them, the more creative they will be with their projects. I need to do a better job of educating students to the materials available as well as make sure there is a system for retrieving and returning these supplies.

2. There is an amazing amount of information that we can obtain and  synthesize as a team. I need to do a better job of capturing, distributing and fostering discussions.

These are my areas of growth and improvement. I would encourage you to consider writing two of each for yourself. If you feel comfortable, send them out to your group. If your not comfortable sharing, that's ok too but I would still encourage you to try this exercise.

Here's to a great first semester!

Student Spotlight: Logan - Sculpture

Student Spotlight: Logan
Ms. Sudkamp's Sculpture Class
       Logan's Blog

For Sculpture/Ceramics class we had to make land art! Land art is basically incorporating art into nature. There are various ways you can make land art.  For an example you can make a mandala out of different colored leaves, stones, and sticks! Or you could make a snow man! The possibilities are endless!The point of land art is to really put your effort into it to make something beautiful; however, land art isn'tmeant to last forever. The best way to capture your piece is to take pictures of it. For my land art piece, I decided to make a little house out of squash and sticks. It was a bit challenging, but very fun! Although Iwas happy with the results with the finished piece, I know there are things I could have done better. For an example, I could have used a ruler to measure the windows and where I would  carve and put everything. All and all this was a pretty successful and fun project!

More of student's work:  Logan's Blog

The Unsung Heroes of the Storage Room

Student Spotlight: Breielle - Art Two

Up Close & Personal: Watercolor

I went from approaching this prompt at a more abstract angle, but I ended up taking the prompt literally and used a 'personal' and 'up-close' photo of myself, which I proceeded to create through watercolor and colored pencil on watercolor paper. This specific picture of me also represented emphasis very well, because all the other colors except for the bandana were muted. 

The process of painting this was very frustrating for me because it seemed like I couldn't get it right. I am pleased with the results, however I feel like I should've done better during the drawing stage. One thing that helped me a lot was the opinions of others. I tried to look at it through a mirror by suggestion of Mr. Sands, and it helped me to "look at it for the first time" and realize that I should have fixed it a lot more during the sketching process.

I almost decided to use all watercolor instead of any colored pencil, but I quickly realized that colored pencil gave a lot more depth and made the painting look more "edgy" than it did prior to application of the colored pencil. I am a lot more pleased with the painting now that I worked on it and put as much as I could into it. I would have been very upset with it if I left it without the shading that it really desperately needed. 

The "Student Spotlight" posts are excerpts taken from our student blogs. 

You can see more of Breielle's work on her blog here!

You can see all our student blogs here!

Student Spotlight: Sam - Art Three

Intertextuality project: #WeCanDoIt

For the Intertextuality project I had several ideas: An angry bird flying through the air with a fork and knife towards the pigs, Spongebob being used to do the dishes, an MnM with diabetes, and finally Rosie the Riveter taking a selfie. I chose the last one beacause I had never seen it before and it was different. I also liked the concept more that all of the others.

 

 I decided to use acrylic paint as my medium because I am most comfortable with it. I paint in my free time outside of school and I knew that I should use it if I wanted to incorporate as much detail as I wanted to. For this project I made my sketch, traced it using the projector, and painted it.

My artwork demonstrates Intertextuality because I took the famous WWII propaganda poster and I changed what she was doing to completely change the meaning. By painting her taking a selfie, I portrayed a modern take on girls nowadays. I think the risk I took with this project is that I've never really painted a person in real detail so I wasn't completely confident in my abilities. I think I included Concept, new, and technique into my peice.

The "Student Spotlight" posts are excerpts taken from our student blogs. 

You can see more of Sam's art here!

You can see all our student blogs here!

Student Spotlight: Christian - Art 1

 Student Spotlight: Christian 
Grade 11: Ms. Sudkamp's Art 1
Project: Low Relief


A relief is a sculpture made through a special technique, where the image is made to appear as if it's above the background. There are three main kinds of relief techniques: sunken, where the non-background parts are dug into, making the background into the top layer; high relief, where the image is cut deeply so depth is clearly visible; and low relief, where there's only shallow cuts to help show details.

For my relief piece, I chose to create a gazelle. This is because I wanted to try creating a different animal than the kinds I usually lean towards (foxes, dogs, cats), and make something more new and interesting. I am particularly proud of the fading on the hooves, snout, and ears, as well as the brush strokes on the horns, as they seem to make the gazelle more interesting to look at. If I could redo any parts of this piece, I would have liked to use larger pieces of cardboard so I wouldn't have the odd, folded parts on the horns and legs. I also would have liked for the tail's gradient to be a bit smoother.

Christian 's Blog:  http://apex-2015-christian.blogspot.com/