teaching art is my life

Week of 02.08.10

2010-02-07T19:47:00.002-05:00

Art I, II and 3

Finish up your thumbnails, remember you must have 4 to get an "A". They can be done on tracing paper, worked off of your original design. Make sure you save them, cut them out, paste onto xerox paper and place in you binders.

Tips: in order to create a good design, make sure you have these things

1. design goes off all 4 sides.

2. you have created interesting shapes... not to few and not to many.

3. you have used a variety of fonts, both serif and san serif... wide and narrow (but not too narrow)

Go ahead and be thinking what you root color is going to be. It can be any color on the 12 color wheel.

Later in the week, I will show you how to make a 10 step value scale (both tints and shades) of your root color You will do a 10 step value scale of your color and it's tints and shades as a binder grade.

Keep plugging away at your concentration, we have 11 weeks left until D-Day!

The web app is up and running, my teacher code in xvr000, here is a link to the page. By the end of the quarter you must have your breadth uploaded and half of you concentration.

week of 01.11.10 EXAMS!

2010-01-11T09:05:00.004-05:00

The snow has thrown us all off. If you did not submit you exam, thumbnails and sketches to me before the snow day, you will need to come in for you exam to finish up!

AP, that goes for you as well, you need to email your breadth to me for your quarterly grade: rdboyd2@mac.com.

Week of 01.14.10

2010-01-05T09:37:00.003-05:00

Welcome back!

Art I and II

It is time to knock out those exams. All exams, both A and B day will be DUE no later than Friday at 2:20pm. No exams will be accepted after that! You must do everything you can to complete the exam by Friday. Today is Tuesday and I am ill, I hope to be in tomorrow... so do not hesitate to call or email me.

Remember, you must also submit your thumbnails and your studies must also be sumbitted and they must be in your BINDER.

Your breadth section will be DUE no later than Friday at 2:20pm. Work must be in your iPhoto folder named Breadth. You may need to take pictures, etc. to make this happen. Once again, call or email with questions.

Weel of 12.14.09 AP 2D Design and Photography

2009-12-14T07:45:00.002-05:00

Photography

Wrap up all weekly photo assignments for the quarter. Remember you were to submit 5 of the following:

Faces
Feet
Hands
Reflections

Shadows
Through a Window

At the end of the quarter your exam grade will be the Breadth part of you AP exam. You must have 12 pieces, edited, placed in you folder on iPhoto. If the AP site is ready for upload, you must upload.

I will also be checking your photo blogs, you must have 6 pieces per week starting in November.

AP 2D Design

Your Breadth will also be due at the end of the quarter. All pieces must be photographed and in your iPhoto folder by the last day of class before exams, this will be your grade.

I will also be checking your sketchbooks for thumbnails and research done on projects from this quarter.

Focus on completing assignments given to you at the beginning of this 9 weeks:

Editorial Cartoon

Distorted Interior

Remember 2D and Photography, after exam week, we have little more than 15 weeks to complete your Concentration: 12 pieces, it is crucial that you complete your Breadth before beginning your Concentration.

For each project you are short on Breadth at the end of the quarter, you will loose point from your exam grade.

EXAM TIME!! Art I,II,III

2009-12-14T07:30:00.002-05:00

Officially we start our exam today. For the past week you have been prepping for this assignment. I have been very impressed with the preliminary work I have seen thus far, many of you have really improved with your drawing skills.

Not only do you have an exam project to do, you must submit your preliminary pieces as well. They are:

1. One modified contour line drawing in Sharpie of 1 shoe.

2. One modified countour line drawing in Sharpie of 2 shoes.

3. Four thumbnails of the still life drawn from a different spot in the classroom each time. You must have 2 in landscape and 2 in portrait. One MUST be the view you pick for your exam.

Things I will be grading on the exam:

I MUST be able to tell where the light source is coming from.

Style of drawing

Composition

Is there more black that white

All prelimanary pieces as well as your exam piece must be submitted on the last day of class before exams, if I do not have your work, I will be seeing you for the exam!

week of 11.23.09

2009-11-22T19:07:00.003-05:00

Well, we have a short week this week. I feel like I have been gone for months and so detached from what all of you have been doing. I did get to see Claudia, Mills, and Jordan for a bit last week when they helped to hang Southern Palettes, the auction with me.

The auction went over very well, we had over 260 pieces of artwork from 24 artists. It was a great night but sales were slow, the recession has been very tough. Steve Penley, myself , Millie Gosch and my sister were the top money raisers for the night, we were lucky. Millie is donating her back to the visual art department and I had designated my piece, The General, to go to the art department but it didn't sell!! You can see all of the work here.

We had a live auction with Steve Penley's work. He sold 3 LARGE pieces, one of which was donated back to the school by Jim Thomasson... you can see it here.

I am looking forward to getting back into the classroom and finding out what I have missed. I hope you are all done with the Mannequin project, I am ready to move on the other things! I am sure you are as well.

No homework this week, just give me a chance to get grounded again in the classroom and find out where you are.

Week of 11.16.08

2009-11-15T15:02:00.003-05:00

Once again, I will be out of the classroom this week organizing the Art Auction for the school. It is a very important event, we hope to raise enough money to make up for the budgetary deficit we face every year. I hate that it interferes with my time with you, but I am sure you won't miss me that much!

ALL CLASSES: remember to join this blog, I will be giving 100 and 0's for those that join and don't join by today. Thus far, I have 17 following, less than half.

Art I & II:

Continue working on the Dancing Mannequins. Many of you are done, many of you are still working. Finish up by the middle of the week for a treat. next Monday, I will be grading your project and your preliminary drawings. If you are done, work on your homework, and it better be good, I will be grading it harder than last time.

You also have another homework assignments DUE Thursday/Friday. Next week, I will give you a break, no homework!

AP PHOTOGRAPHY:

Keep updating your blogs everyday. I will start grading you activity this week, you should already have 7 pieces posted at this point. and you will post 7 more this week.

From this point on, you MUST upload a photo every day and it must be taken that day.

Last week you have 5 pictures of faces due, this week your theme is REFLECTIONS. Once again, 5 DUE by Thursday/ Friday.

Please email your feet, faces, and reflection images to me on Thursday/ Friday of this week: rdboyd2@mac.com

AP 2D DESIGN:

If you have yet to finish your editorial cartoon, do so. It will be DUE Thursday/Friday of this week, I will be coming by school Friday to pick them up. You must also submit you sketchbooks so I can grade your roughs and refined roughs, make sure you mark the pages.

Your next project is going to be a shaded pencil drawing of a distorted interior. You must have photo reference when you come to class on Monday/Tuesday next week.

Reference materials MUST be yours. Look up interior in the dictionary and use you imagination! Have at least 4 different references. You will also need to consider HOW you are going to distort your drawing. Play with distortion in Photoshop... use the transform command or distortion filter.

AP 2D Design: Week of 11.08.09

2009-11-08T22:03:00.003-05:00

You guys need to keep plugging away on your editorial cartoons, finished roughs are DUE Wednesday and the final piece is DUE Friday. Use your strengths to make it better... if you use Photoshop well, use it! Same with Illustrator, or just pen and ink or ink and watercolor.

You will be getting 3 grades for these pieces, 2 homeworks for each rough... ust be in the sketchbook I supplied and a project grade for the finished piece.

AP Photography: week of 11.08.09

2009-11-08T21:51:00.004-05:00

Big week for you guys, I am expecting you to begin your photoblogs today. We will be using the Blogspot blogs, which are google driven. You will need a gail email address and then you should be good to go. Just click on create a blog at the blogspot website and pick a theme. Keep it simple... literally, use simple black or simple white themes.

I have kept on for a week and it has been quite a challenge, you can see it here. When you set your up, email a link to me rdboyd2@mac.com. I will grade it tonight, as a daily grade, and every night.

Start posting TODAY!

Also, you have 5 photos of faces due by Friday. They do not have to be full faces, they can be close ups of face parts, weird angles, whatever. Be creative. Please feel free to use Photoshop in your finished pieces, they must all be portfolio worthy.

Art I and II Assignments: week of 11.09.09

2009-11-07T14:29:00.003-05:00

This week we will continue to work on our Dancing Mannequin projects. Painting has begun and I have been very pleased with what you all have been doing. I have especially enjoyed what the upper level art students have been doing with their grayed out color triad, they have been adding a colors compliment to the mix to tone the color down and make a more muted palette. Very cool! Once the painting has begun, you will finish it of by exploring more motion by drizzling and slinging watered down tempera onto your canvas or using a tooth brush for a splatter effect. The way you drizzle or slash your paint makes very distinct marks.

Those of you that watch Dexter and to a certain degree, CSI, have seen these characters examine blood spatter and can tell by looking and the size, shape and direction of the spatter, what caused it.

You may also want to look at the work of Jackson Pollock and Ralph Steadman.

Here is a great video done of Pollock painting on a piece of glass with a camera under it, very cool stuff. He is also talking in the video about his life and work.

I found great video of Steadman working, but you will have to discover that on you own.

DUE: Thursday/Friday

GRADE: I will be giving you a homework grade for your 15 mannequins and a project grade for the finished product.

Mannequins must be in your binder

1 Sketchbook assignment will also be DUE Thursday/Friday

AP 2D Design

2009-11-03T12:01:00.001-05:00

We will continue to work on our editorial cartoons. I have pushed the deadline a bit... but the dates and pieces due will be the same... you need to turn in:

1. Rough sketches and ideas next class- homework grade

2. Tight sketches first class next week- homework grade

3. Final DUE Thursday/Friday next week- project grade

see the work of

AP Photography: week of 11.03.09

2009-11-03T11:39:00.000-05:00

PHOTOBLOGGERY

Photography student, we will start you photo a day blog this week. We will be using photoblog.com. I will be starting one as well. I will post a link to the site so you can begin. I will no require you to post any images this week, it may be a good opportunity to stockpile a few images to get you started next week.

The whole point of this is to keep you on your toes, to always be looking for that "photo" everyday, everywhere you go. These images do not have to be done with a typical camera, you may only have your cell phone on you when that perfect picture presents itself. Taking a picture a day really translates to taking at least 25 pictures a day, which is great discipline and drop in the bucket if you continue to pursue photography in college.

I also want you to get in the habit of reflecting on or writing about the images you take.

We will begin posting images next week. Look for a Flickr group to follow.

ASSIGNMENT OF THE WEEK

Feet... all feet all the time. I expect you to show me 5 images of feet by Thursday, Nov. 12/Friday, Nov.13

They can be in shoes, without shoes, dirty, clean, in socks, 1 pair, 4 pairs, animal, human, hamsters, birds.... I don't care, I just want you to be creative.

next week.... hands.

Art I and II Assignments: week of 11.03.09

2009-11-03T11:14:00.002-05:00

Keep working on work on your paintings.

In addition, one homework assignment on the last day of class this week... Thursday and Friday.

I will be grading them by the usual rubrics, you will get points for time spent, composition, amount of page filled, etc.

Our paintings will be due at the end of the week next week. B Day: Thursday 11:12.09. A Day: Friday 11.13.09.

Art I and II: Dancing Mannequins

2009-11-03T10:55:00.000-05:00

Art I and II are busy working on mannequin drawings for a tempera painting we are doing. The paintings will emphasize proportion, motion and color. Students will be using a triadic color scheme with tints and shades to paint these pieces.

Students were asked to draw 15 drawings of the classic wooden mannequins in various poses. Students learned that the basic human body is 7.25 heads high and the head fits between your shoulder and elbow and elbow to wrist, upper thigh to knee and knee to ankle, as well as other tidbits like the torso is 2 heads across from shoulder to shoulder. All of these things are the basic essentials to drawing the human figure. Students were also introduced to the concept of the "line of motion," a life drawing technique that helps the students to draw the spine first in order to capture the pure movement of the figure.

Students will arrange their drawings on a piece of 18"x24" placing the large drawings on the bottom or foreground, the medium sized figures in the middle ground and the small figures in the background. Figures must overlap, thus creating the illusion of depth on a 2D surface.

Welcome to my BLOG?

2009-11-03T10:52:00.000-05:00

In order to get a grip on my life as a teacher and to be able to share things I find with my students, I have birthed this blog.

Keeping up with a website is a pain, sharing videos or thoughts or ideas in increasingly more difficult as well. I hope this will be a place where my students and I can communicate with each other, where I can post videos of assignments, homework assignments, field trip pictures, etc.

This is a format that I am familiar with and feel comfortable with. I hope this works, enjoy the journey!