Completed Value Portraits and Upcoming Watercolor

Students have turned in their value portraits, and are starting the last project of the semester- watercolor self portraits. For this project, students were randomly assigned a descriptive word such as frantic, elated, etc. Today they had time to take a "selfie" depicting that word. There was a focus on pose, camera angle, and framing. On Friday we will edit the images in the photo lab and prep them to transfer to watercolor paper.  The depiction will continue to hold importance in the artwork, as students will focus on color implications to continue their meaning in the portrait. Until Friday, we will get familiar with these color implications through analysis of advertisements and photography.

Before jumping ahead, here are some images of the finished value portraits. They turned out hilarious, realistic, and very nice! 

Spirit Animal Value Portraits

Students have been working on a quick project after finishing up their sculptures. For this unit, we began by discussing the concept of spirit animals, a shamanistic belief of a spiritual guide in the form of an animal. The animal will represent elements of it's human's personailty. So in other words (when we simplify a bit)...

If you were an animal, what would you be??

Students focused on their interests in climate, activity, company, and energy level as a jumping off point, and spoke with their peers to continue the process.

Once decided, students found an image of the animal and printed it iut as a reference. We discussed proportion and reference points in the face, and animals began drawing their images on a fresh sheet.

We are taking these in a more goofy direction, and students are adding accessories to emphasize their personality in the portraits. As the project continues through next week, students will begin adding backgrounds and frames to the artworks.

I am super excited to see the portraits progress, and am having fun along the way! Who knew that so many freshmen boys would put tuxedos in their portraits? So classy! 

Here are a few images of portraits in progress:

Completed Sculptures!

Our clay song sculptures are officially finished, and are coming out of their last firing this week. For this project, students altered a cube with inspiration from a favorite song. They focused on using the Elements and Principles of Art in their planning and design. Many students took risks and tried new techniques, something I always like to see! Here are a few images of finished sculptures.