What's Going On in the Classroom: Clay!

Yay for clay! During 4th quarter, my room is completely transformed into a clay studio! Okay, that's only my wishful thinking. It's still the same old room, just with lots of clay dust and lots of enthusiasm for making things with clay! Students are starting out with a pinch pot and then one other small vessel either built with slabs or coils. Here is where we're at so far:

What's Going on in the Classroom: Fun in the Darkroom!

Hey hey, it's so beautiful outside! It makes me want summer so bad! I've realized recently that I have not been updating this here blog with any images from photo class! We just finished a section where we did some very cool and fun techniques in the darkroom. The first one was painting with developer. This is where instead of putting the whole piece of photo paper in the developer and allowing all areas of it to develop at the same rate, students painted (or dripped or splattered) on the developer so that parts of the image developed at different rates or not at all! The results are really cool! The other technique we used was to sandwich two negatives in the enlarger. This is when two negatives are placed in the enlarger on top of each other cause there to be two images on the paper when it is exposed and developed. This also looks pretty cool, check it out!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Computer Graphics Project

As promised, here is the post showing off the computer graphic skills of my students! Since this is an intro course to most of the mediums we teach at higher levels, we did a very simple project, but the kids still had so much fun with it and really used their imagination. Their assignment was to draw or paint an image that they then incorporated into a digital image that the found online (royalty free of course!) They used Adobe Photoshop to complete this assignment. Their goal was to combine their drawing with the found image as inconspicuously as possible. I have to say, even the ones that weren't very inconspicuous were still pretty cool! Check out a sampling of their work:

A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Exhibition Time!

Hey all, if you're in the Ann Arbor area and would like to see some of my work, I'm currently exhibiting a piece at Concordia University's annual juried show called Borders, Boundaries and Thresholds. Check it (and my piece specifically) out!

I will also be exhibiting in June and July at Wayne State University in Detroit. More to come as we get closer to that date!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Social Issues-Group Paintings

Hello all! I know it's been a bit and that's my fault. I have no excuse other than the end of the year causes me to be lazy. Okay, okay I know it's not technically the end of the year, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, especially since our annual art show is over. Everything builds to that show and now that it's over, it feels like we're going down hill!

So in the art room, we just finished a Computer Graphics project, which I will post examples of in  a day or two. However, we are finishing out the quarter strong with a group painting! Students were put into groups of five or six people and given the task of composing an image based on a social issue. Their goal was to bring awareness to something happening in the world today that they felt strongly about. After choosing their topic, they brainstormed ideas and images that they could use. Every student had to be involved in the drawing and painting of the large image. Check out their work so far!

And as a side note, look at the fun little portrait I found while cleaning up. Someone painted it on a palette. So creative!