HS Oil Painting Self-Portarits

In the spirit of building skills. My IB Year 1 Visual Art students started the year learning oil painting techniques. Not a single student had prior experience using oils. As I told the class at the beginning of the project, "this won't be your best oil painting, but it will be your most important one." Below are the results.

The example I made in class. Shameless self-promotion.

   

B/W and Sepia Portrait Photography

Per our discussion in class regarding B/W and sepia portrait photography. You might also want to do a key word search on the subject. Remember your setting on the camera and take notes on what work and what didn't. The images below will serve as examples. All images below are teacher examples and borrowed from the www. 

Think: rules of thirds, composition, background, setting, lighting, contrast, 

Black and White self-portraits Middle school

Size: 18" x 18"
Learning Objective: to make and apply light, medium, and dark values.
Learning to see yourself from an unusual angle.

Tempera paint and really bad paint brushes (new and better ones arriving next year!)

Below are my student examples.

Experiments in printmaking (MS and HS art)

We had an extra day for a quick project in block printing. The demonstration was short and sweet. We had an essential question of: What would the outcome be if if we printed one design on top of another. The evidence lies below.

The idea:
1. Create 2 designs/patterns: 1 organic and 1 geometric
2. Print on top of each other to observe how overlapping changes colors and how overlapping lines intersect.

High School Photography Unit part 1

If you're an old man like me you might remember having a photography lab in high school full of wonderful chemicals that made your hands all stinky. The days of over exposed paper and making out with your boy/girlfriend in the darkroom is long gone. Love it or hate it, digital photography has made the process easier to teach, or has it...

The downside to digital photography as my wife states has created lazy photographers. There isn't that set limit of 12, 24, or 36 shots on a roll, therefore you don't really have to think about composition. In my experience, I found this to be true. Many people think that just because they have a nice camera qualifies them as photographer.

For this assignment I asked students to turn-in 2 compositions of each theme: Close-Up Portrait, Portrait, Stop Action, Light, and a Freeze Scene (drama class inspired). Prior to releasing the kids on their own we spent a couple of days covering all the jargon and rule of thirds...did the concepts sink in, a little.  

Example: Close-up Portrait

Example: Portrait

Example: Light

Example: Stop Action

Example: Freeze Scene

Below is Student work