What's Going on in the Classroom: Beginning of the School Year

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Well usually starting off the blog is easy in the beginning of the year and then as the school year progresses I struggle to maintain my regular posting. Well this year, I predict, will be the opposite! Since I had such a hard time getting going here at the beginning, I'll be posting once a day, at the end of the year! Right!? Haha... I'm sure not, but here goes anyway.
So we're nearing the end of the first month of school. Smack dab in the middle of the fourth week. This year I'm teaching all levels of photography! It's so nice to focus in on one subject area and really hone my teaching skills in that particular branch of the arts. Here's what we've been up to!

In Photo 1 we're having a grand 'ole time learning about our cameras and how they work. We've been really focusing on the Elements and Principles and aperture for this first quarter and the kids are loving it.

We went down to the pool deck for some serious practice and the students really got into getting the best shots.

And we always make time for a little silliness!

Photo 2 is starting the year right with some film review and advanced techniques! We're scratching and toning some prints. We are also working on litho and solarization. Hopefully we'll also be able to play around with pinhole cameras! And stay tuned for some amazing pics from AP Photo! Those kids are going to have killer portfolios!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Photography- Shutter Speed

Just an update on Photography students! Students just finished up learning about and using shutter speed successfully in their photography to blur and freeze motion and paint with light. Look at the amazing results they achieved!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Photography Students at Work

First of all, one of our very own photo students combined her love of journalism and her awesome photo skills to photography portraits (what we just learned about!) for the school  news paper! Check it out!

Photos by Audrey Whitaker

The rest of the photo students are hard at work using their Shutter Speed as a tool to stop motion, blur motion, paint with light, pan, and create multiple exposures! Look at these great photographers putting their skills to the test!

So many photographers in one place!

Freezing motion!

Light painting in the MPR

I'll let you determine if these girls are really hard at work :)

What's Going on in the Classroom: Elements and Principles with Photography

A couple of entries ago, I promised I'd post some examples of the Elements and Principles images that my Photo 1 students have taken. There were a lot of good ones to pick from, let me tell you! The assignment was for each student to go out and take new pictures! Each picture should illustrate one of the fifteen Elements and Principles of Art that we had spent some time talking about. After they took them all, we voted on which ones best represented each category and those students received some extra credit! 

A Peak Inside my Portfolio: Flight Series

My students are currently working on an assessment drawing of a still life and photo students are in the film developing stages. Although I was tempted to post some still life pictures, I know we all know how to lead a project like that and it's not a terribly new idea. So for times like this, I decided to have posts either about project I'm working on or artwork I'm creating. Hence the last post about my home decor and now this post about my current work!

I'm taking some graduate level courses and right now and I'm in the thick of a studio painting class. We are working very large scale which is awesome and sometimes intimidating. For these paintings, I wanted my inspiration to come from flight. If I haven't shared this yet, my husband is a pilot and we are currently building a plane in our garage. So flying and flight have a huge impact on my life right now.

When I began thinking about flight however, I wanted to stay away from the idea of clouds and wind and blue etc... I didn't want the theme to be immediately obvious or cliche. Then I started thinking about the plane, the only way that humans can fly. The only way that we can experience flight is through a metal box and metal wings, hard and unyielding, which is totally at odds with the open and and wind currents and clouds.

To that end, I chose to do a series of paintings of plane parts that my husband has been working on. Primarily in monochromatic color schemes. To keep the idea of flight apparent, since these pieces don't appear to be plane-like yet, I made the background very airy and cloud-ish.

I haven't actually finished any of them, but they're all awesome works in progress and I'm excited about this series.

Just finishing the background area of the first painting.

Here's my sketch of the basic shapes.

Blocking in darks and lights.

Refining...

And more... it's almost done, this is how far I am :)

Number 2, same process.

Pretty much finished I think...

Third piece, this is the only one that is for sure finished.

What's Going on in the Classroom: Applying Value and Perspective Drawing

Hope these first weeks of school have been going well! I know they've been flying by for me. I'm kinda in love with teaching high school. My husband and I moved into a new house which is much closer to the school, so my mornings aren't nearly as early as I thought they'd be. Also, the students are so creative and talented. I'm enjoying not having to always be quieting kids down.

In my foundations class, we started with a quarter on drawing. I had the students do a pre-assessment drawing which I will use for showing growth. Then we talked about value and light and how to place value (they prefer to call it shading). We have since moved into perspective and are working on a cool one-point perspective project, creating a Surreal hallway. (Thanks Patti for the idea!) More to come on that project later. Students are having a great time, and their skills are improving, it's fun to watch!

Just a quick catch up on our Photography class as well. Student's first assignment was to take pictures of the Elements of Art and Principles of Design. Then in groups, the students worked on sorting the elements and principles without knowing which one was which. We picked our favorite examples of each one and they are proudly hanging in the hallway. On to shooting filming and developing!!