2014 Reflections: Part One - Most Successful

As we close out the school year here at Apex Art, we asked out students to reflect back on their work over the semester. Here are some of their responses...

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What was your most successful project this semester? Describe the project and your work, then explain why you picked it. 
My most successful project this semester would probably my two into one project.  For this project we had to choose two feelings/emotions or two objects and make them one.  I decided to do two emotions of beauty and pain.  I wanted to do these two show that something may be beautiful, but can be experiencing pain at the same time.  I decided not to have any color except on the harmed parts.  I think this was my most successful project because I spent a lot of time on this project and at times I had to just start over and it was a lot of effort.  But it was worth it in the end because I love the outcome and wouldn't change a thing about it. ~ Brittney's Blog



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My most successful project was my news project. I really liked the idea of my project and it turned out really well. I was nervous at first cause I've never drawn a person before and a lot of people aren't good at it. I spent a lot of time working on different aspects of a face using a facial expression book. I'm glad I decided to do this project though because it's one of the best I've done. For this project I used charcoal which I'm not too experienced with. I did a project with it last semester but that's the only prior experience I had with charcoal. I think I could have more value in my drawing but I was scared to use the 6B because if you mess up there's not much you can do to cover it up. I used darker values in the neck and the hair but not much on his actual face.

~ Rocio's Blog

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I find that my time project was the most successful. It was a completely original project that stemmed from my own fascination with the wonder of flight, and through this shows my level of creativity, as well as my ability to find a way to make this rather ambitious idea work. It also conveys the light-hearted message I was trying to portray through it. The fluffy cloud background and the focus on how the plane elegantly rises and falls on the wind as it sails smoothly through the sky illustrates calmness and tranquility as your mind floats along with the airplane. This piece conveys my originality and message much better than any of my other projects throughout the year have done. ~ Kimberly's Blog

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My most successful project, in my opinion, was my Identity Project. The project is supposed to be what goes on in my mind most of the time when i'm daydreaming, or dreaming in general. The media I had used was markers and pens which is my favorite media. I picked this project as my most successful because it shows most of my skill, especially with  colouring and style. It has the most characters and took me the longest time to do. I am very proud of this work and it is just so important to me. Its a very big picture, almost a poster, and having something represent me (my mind) means a lot. ~ Nory's Blog

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My most successful project was probably my "lightning bugs" project I did at the beginning of the semester.     I learned a lot of new processes while working on this particular project. I had never really used photoshop before and my teacher wanted me to challenge myself with different mediums such as this. I also got the chance to try out a different technique for creating art, and that's by using the photocopier to print and take pictures of still life pieces and layer the different copies so they create a whole new picture. I didn't work with very many materials that were familiar to me so this was a new experience but I really enjoyed learning about photoshop and all the different things I can do to make a picture like this one come to life. I wasn't sure at first if using photoshop and actual still-life pieces was a good idea, but my teacher convinced me to play around with different objects on the photocopier and when I found a setup that I was satisfied with, I was extremely pleased with how the project came together.     I could have just as easily said no to using the photocopier and just painted something similar to this piece with acrylic or watercolor paints, but since it was a brand new class when we started on these projects, I thought it was time to step up my game and risk trying something new.

~ Ashley's Blog

Congratulations Apex Class of 2014!

2013-2014 Art Teachers Year in Review

This was the first time since I started at Apex that there has been a team of teachers with common interests, working together to achieve common goals. The results, which I outline below, far exceeded any expectation I could have envisioned. This is truly an amazing list of accomplishments!

Technology

There were several technology based ideas brought to fruition that helped advance the Art Dept.

The NAHS website was established to deliver information about meetings and events. http://apexnahs.weebly.com/index.html

The Student Spotlight was introduced to showcase the work of individual students. http://www.artofapex.com/search/label/Student%20Spotlight

We branded the "Art of Apex" and applied the brand to all our networking sites including gMail, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest. We also purchased the ArtofApex domain. http://www.artofapex.com

Speaking of the blog, we rolled out the first group blog series about Choice in the Open Art Room. This series amazingly received over 4,000 individual hits, with each of the five individual posts receiving more hits than any other blog post. http://www.artofapex.com/2013/11/why-dont-high-school-art-students-work.html

Of course I couldn't mention technology without giving props to our biggest technological accomplishment, the Portal. So impressive is this accomplishment in size and scope, with over 50 videos, 60 Pinterest boards and over 1,000 pins, that it is equivalent to many of the projects I worked on at Nortel Networks.  http://artofapexportal.weebly.com

Furthermore, this is the first year that all art students at Apex (over 400) have created a blog. The Artistic Behaviors section of the Portal has allowed a consistent method for students to self assess their artistic development. http://www.artofapex.com/p/student-blogs.html


Curriculum

Theme Based Teaching:

This was the first year theme based teaching was introduced at Apex. Theme based teaching allowed the students to develop creative solutions to problems instead of following recipe style art lessons.

TAB/Student Choice:

Similar to theme based lessons, this was the first year the concept of letting students make decisions about the art making process has ever been discussed. The student response to this method was overwhelming positive. This was more then allowing them to choose between media, it was the first time we at Apex have dedicated our efforts to teaching them to think and work as artists.  http://www.artofapex.com/2014/01/does-choice-really-matter.html

The proof is in the pudding.. The number of students signing up for next year's art classes is through the roof! Every class has enough students signed up for another section beyond what we already offer.


Professional Development

Our acceptance to NCCAT allowed us to create and populate the Portal content. This trip, including our tour of the Green Energy Park, was a wonderful professional development experience. However, the story goes beyond our experience. An art department, located outside of Charlotte, was so inspired by our Portal that they in turn applied to NCCAT with the intention of developing their own art dept. portal. 
http://www.artofapex.com/2014/03/hey-where-did-all-teachers-go.html

Professional development is not just about receiving but sharing what we learn. Two of our proposals were accepted to the NCAEA State Conference in New Bern next October. I believe we would have had all three accepted if not for a mix up regarding one of them.

Several of us took part in the international Monday Art Ed chats sponsored by Colleen Rose on Google hangout. In these video sessions, we discussed topics ranging from the Portal to student choice. All of these sessions were recorded and made available online.https://m.youtube.com/user/MrsRoseArt

Speaking of international exchanges, several of our students exchanged comments with students from Ontario, Canada in the Google Plus Community.

And most recent, but certainly not least relevant, the HS TAB Facebook community had 50 teachers join on the first day and continues to grow in both numbers and conversations daily.

Truly, this has been a remarkable year... and we are just getting

Preparing for The Art of Apex High: Halle Exhibit

Artists at Apex High School have only today and tomorrow to complete and turn in their art work if it is to be displayed in the Art of Apex High exhibit at the Halle Cultural Arts Center in downtown Apex. 

The show, which will display works by both current students as well as alumni, will open next Friday with a reception on Friday, June 6th from 6 to 8 pm.

Mural: Making Technology Appealing to Women

By Rachel

 

 

 

 
Instead of working on the Parallel assignment, I'm creating another mural, a project that spun off of our previous chalk mural.

While Hannah, Jessica and I were working on our chalk mural in the courtyard, a teacher approached us about working on a mural in her room. She teaches computer classes and said that for years she'd been wanting to paint a mural in her room to help make the technology classes more appealing to women. She explained that women make great programmers but they often don't chose that course of study because they feel uncomfortable in that environment/ feel as though they don't belong . 

Later in the week we went to look at the wall she had in mind and started sketching out our ideas. At first we were thinking about doing a landscape of some sort, but then Hannah suggested something more graphic and bold that would have a larger impact on the space. She found this picture for inspiration (see above).

We loved the bright colors and the organic shapes, and plan to also incorporate bubbles and fish to the leafy background. Instead of using the darker hues as our background, we switched to turquoises which girls in the class said were more appealing to them.

This past week we started painting the background color of the wall, a mix of three tints of turquoise. We also blocked off the wall to look like a portal to further the illusion of being under the sea.

See more of Rachel's Art on her blog!

Parallel Project: Production

For the Parallel Project, our artists were asked to find a news story and create a work of art that uses metaphor and allusion. Here is a look at a few of the sketches and works in progress.

"I had the idea of using the airplane that went missing. I'm making a multimedia of a boy looking up at the sky with a remote control in one hand. He's searching for his model airplane, but it's nowhere to be seen."  ~ Brittany

"This piece of artwork will represent the hasty tensions between the United States and Russia during the Space Race in the '60's. The metaphor is to be that it looks like a comic and that they are threatening each other with Ray/Space guns". ~ Jacob

"I decided not to pick a specific news story to base my project on, but a modern downfall. I chose to use the idea of unhappy marriage and put a fairy tale twist to it. The idea I'm going with is Happily Never After. This is a series of 5 works that show how the Disney Princesses don't get happy endings either. For Belle, she will be sitting in her library reading with a fire roaring in the fireplace and Beast's head mounted to the wall like a trophy." ~ Ryn

"My idea for this project was the South Korean ferry sinking. What struck me the most is that over 300 students died and the captain and crew members survived!  So I wanted to portray the part of the obedient high school students who listened to the crew and stayed on board rather than trying to escape and be rescued.  The students I made as sheep that were innocently following orders, and the captain and the crew to be wolves that only looked after themselves and risked the lives of others for personal gain." ~ Jessica

"I wanted to do something about my home country, Egypt. I decided to make a project involving the revolutions that have been going on for the past 4 years.  The past revolution put us back to the start if everything we had accomplished from the previous revolutions because it was for bad reasons. I decided to have a meaning behind a troubled man. First I would have the man breaking through a wall as if he had been trying to get through it for a long time. Secondly, while he is half out I want him to have face planted into a long pole as of he had been surprised of the outcome". ~Nora

Art Education: Beyond the Pencil

The old blue prints are out the window and at Apex High School we are laying down a new set of plans that are setting the world of Art Education on its ear. Simply stated, we are no longer interested in making art but rather, making artists.

The Open Art Room is a concept where students no longer follow step by step, recipe type art projects but are encouraged to communicate ideas and take risks in a self-directed learning environment.

Are we geniuses who thought this all up? Well, some of it. However, we are really good at borrowing and synthesizing concepts.  We merged great ideas from PBS Art 21 and Choice-based teaching methods like Teaching For Artistic Behaviors (TAB). Here are some of our foundation methods.

Theme Lessons: Starting with a big idea or questions allows the students to conceive meaningful art. We're not just drawing puppies here. We are creating art that communicates to the audience.

Choice in Media: Gone are the days when art was all about paint on canvas. Anything can be an art material so why should the teacher decided? Choice in media allows the student to select the materials they believe will best communicate their vision.

Artistic Behaviors: Knowing how to color inside the lines is not what it takes to make an artist. Yes, artists need to have art making skills but they also need to know how to communicate through their work, take risks and solve problems.  At Apex, we developed a list of Artistic Behaviors students use as a guideline when working on their projects.

Reflection: Once the art is created, an artist should be able to intelligently speak about it. We encourage each artist at Apex to track the progress of their work and reflect on finished pieces online. Each beginning student creates a blog that follows them throughout the program.

All of this is not without controversy. There are some that say students need guidelines and boundaries and believe programs like ours simply let children do whatever they want without structure. We say, one look at the innovative work coming out of our program silences these accusations.

Furthermore, we are not alone. Thanks to social media, art teachers with similar views have been able to discuss ideas and even collaborate online. Art teachers like Jack Watson of Chapel Hill, NC and Colleen Rose from Ontario, Canada are developing similar programs with great success.

A Flower! Yay!

Today Michelle brought me a flower. You might ask, "It's a nice flower but so what?" Well, let me tell you a little story. 

 The Art History class recently visited the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. to view the exhibit, Damage Control: Art and Destruction. In fact, I recently wrote an article about it for Art of Education. You can read the article here.

By far my favorite work in the exhibit was a video created by Pipilotti Rist titled Ever Is Over. The video piece was created by simultaneously projecting two separate videos onto two different walls with a blurred video overlapping in the middle. The video on the right simply displayed tropical flowers in a field. The main story was displayed by the video projected to the left. In it, a young woman, filmed in slow motion strolls down a car-lined city street. Her summer dress sways as she promenades down the block carrying a long-stemmed tropical flower.

Cheerfully, the girl swings the long stem flower hitting a car window which, to the viewer’s surprise, is instantly smashed to pieces. The flower in the video is actually made of metal. The video is both whimsical and charming, while at the same time violent and tense.

So when Michelle saw this flower growing in her backyard, she picked it and brought it to class. How cool is that!! Thanks Michelle!

Barbie Visits The Museum!

Barbie Visits the Museum from Apex HS Art on Vimeo.

 

Here's a quick look at some of the other things we did in Art History this year...

We did stuff like this...

OK, I'm not really sure what she is doing but she looks pretty happy about it so there you go.

We learned about Romulus and Remus! 

We made kites like this Pop Art inspired kite in progress.

We learned about Egyptian hippos and Jackson Pollock... though I'm not sure they were around at the same time.

And we made some degenerate art. So that was fun!