Artists Collaborate: Part 1

The original idea for the unit Artists Collaborate was simple...  artists working together in groups. We discussed  different ways artists might collaborate including everything from Jeff Koons type of involvement where someone is hired to make the art all the way through to true collaborative teams like Christo and Jean Claude. So when the final project was presented, it would make sense that the students would simply work collaboratively. What they did surprised me.

Instead of forming teams and working in groups, this class interpreted collaboration as more of a way for people to create art and then more importantly, respond in an artistic way to the created work. Here are a few examples of this type of collaboration currently in progress.

Above, an illustration created by a student in class. This work of art is being responded to in the photo below.

Parker is responding to the original illustration by creating a vector version using Adobe illustrator.

This team decided to create a collaborative Children's book. Different students are asked to create part of the story and illustrate it. However, they are only allowed to see the page prior to the one they are creating. They aren't allowed to see the completed story till it is, well, created.

This student decided she didn't want to draw at all. Instead, she is posting a different word each day. Participating students are limited to adding one item and only using one color. Today's word is "Turkey".

For this project, Gail asked many people to draw body parts and facial features. i.e. draw a left ear, draw a nose, etc... She then projected all the parts and is combining them into one complete drawing.

Everyone in this group drew another person in the group. all the images are being combined into one final work of art... stay tuned for the final results!