Ari-stotle Art

This week our featured art show took a spiritual turn and hit the mark with some cool design features incorperated into the gallery space to pull it all together.

Make it work!

Hey crew Happy Thanksgiving! Give some thought to your concentrations over the vacation because for the next 12 weeks you'll have a concentration piece due each week! Time to... (you know)

Queen Muppets

Here's a awesome short film that a former student, Kelli Krysh, sent me that her company, Soapbox Films, worked on to commemorates the anniversary of Queen front man, Freddy Mercury's death from AIDs. They shot it in 1 day using 79 muppets and 53 different setups- impressive!! It's great to see students graduate and do what they love!

Senior AP Shows: Amanda & The Rat

Our second senior show was a big success this week and certainly piqued the interest of more than a few students and faculty with it's promotional Rat posters. Special guest "Twilight" was a big hit as well as a great body of work from 2 years of AP art.

Breadth Madness

Happy Halloween and congratulations- you're now almost 1/4th the way to the finish line! As the 1st quarter comes to a close I'd like each student to post the Breadth piece that you are most proud of and to comment on each others work. This will help give you some direction in terms of where you are headed for your portfolio and your concentration. The important question to ask yourself is- Why is this your favorite? What about it do you respond to? Try to write a short sentance or two summing up why the piece was chosen and when commenting see if you can help give each other some more focus in terms of your direction.

This week we'll go over the basics of blogging and working on the web!

Senior AP Shows: Chelsea mouse City mouse

This week we had our first AP Senior Artshow with Chelsea's work and the work was equally as popular as the amazing cupcakes that she brought in!

From memory?

Here's a clip showing autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire who is able to draw detailed cityscapes from life- amazing stuff!

Sketchbook Week!!!

Now that we've all had a chance to get to know each other and put a few breadth pieces together it's time for SKETCHBOOK week! Eash class this week we will have a different assignment to be completed in your sketchbook with whatever materials you'd like. Be sure to use the whole page wether it's literally covering the page or activating the space via line or form in some way. Below are a few links for inspiration- have fun!

Monday: Draw from life in class including at least one person

Drawn!

Urban Sketchers

The Drawing Studio

Tuesday: Make your doodles into art

Needles

Doodlers Anonymous

Mattias Adolfsson

Wednesday: Illustrate the story in class

Nadja Andrasev

Sugar Frosted Goodness!

Sumarine Submarine

Thursday: Draw a portrait of someone you dont know well

Michelle White

Tommy Kane

Chris Wahl

Octavio Diaz

Friday: Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday

2009 AP Studio Art Summer Assignments

Below are the assignments for students who are enrolled in the 2009-2010 AP Art class. We'll be meeting as a group on June 4 to go over the assignments and I'll be posting a few examples from the current AP art students shortly. If you have any questions dont hestitate to email me ans ask.


Due August 1
2 Completed Breadth pieces: Self Portrait Collage & Black & White "Grid"
2 Thematic works: Fabulous & Juxtaposition

Due September 7
20 complete sketchbook pages
2 Thematic works: Resonance, & Where I'm At

The nature of design

As we have been discussing the nature of design in class, I thought I would share this TED talk from Niels Diffrient with you for inspiration. Below are some addition links to some great design inspiration for the web and school based architecture to aid you with your current assignments.
Cool Design Ideas Blog
Innovative School Architectural Design

Concentration Examples

Here's a few examples of concentration portfolios along with the writing samples:

2D Exam

Drawing Exam

LACMA's 11

AP Studio Art Digital Submission

Here's a link to the Studio Art Digital Submission webpage. Please be sure to get online and begin uploading you're work this week so that you don't fall behind. On Monday next week we'll have a session in class going over more of the details but most of the important information can be found via the link above.

Strictly Students Film Festival Call for Entries 2009

It's time for this year's Call for Entries for the 5th Anniversary Strictly Students Film Festival and the deadline for films is April 3 and it's free to enter so check out the website for more information: www.strictlystudentsfest.com.

Shepard Fairey lawsuit

This week there came news of a lawsuit between one of the artists we spoke about in class, Shepard Fairey (of OBEY), and the Associated Press. Fairey's poster was based on a photograph taken by AP photographer Mannie Garcia. The question at hand is whether or not Fairey altered the image enough to (in a sense) make it an original piece of work.

Sometime this week take a moment to read the following 2 articles so that we can discuss it in class when we return from vacation.

NY Times Article and PRINT magazine

Scott McCloud

Here's an interesting video from Scott McCloud who is a terrific animator and author discussing art, life, and cartooning.

Two important things to note:

first: how Scott gives some of his personal background and how that relates to his concepts and art (remember pulling from your own experience generally results in the most original and interesting work you have to offer)

second: how Scott's "out of the box" narrative style of presentation reflects the "out of the box" variations in cartooning that he discusses (like he mentions this is just his nature- getting in touch with your own instincts and nature will inform your art and in a larger sense your choices and views in life)

As an extra credit assignment try to create an "out of the box" comic that uses space and direction in an interesting way (due when we return from break)

Barack Obama's Inauguration Day

Having an opportunity to watch the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama in class on our SMARTboard today was really a sign of how far technology has come (and I suppose having the signal drop out so often was a sign of where technology needs to go).

As a homework assignment this week I'd like all of you to think about what you heard in class (and the issues that surround it) and create a work in any media that reflects your feelings on it. Here's a link to the New York Times which has a transcription of the speech along with every presidential inauguration speech (it also has the words that were used repeatedly tagged with the amount of times it was used)- 2009 Inauguration Day Speech

We have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly." -Barack Obama

It's also important to note that President Obama made an interesting choice in using the artist we spoke about earlier in the year- Shepard Fairey, a modern graffiti artist (and creator of OBEY), to create his signature icon shown above. What do you think about that choice? What does that say to the art world?

Andrew Wyeth 1917-2009

Painter Andrew Wyeth died today in his home in Chadds Ford, Pa. at the age of 91. He is a monumental figure in American art best known for his 1948 painting "Christina's World". Ironically, he was an anti-establishment artist who became the establishment.

There's nothing else quite like Andrew's gritty, gorgeous brushwork and desolate, haunting imagery. I grew up with "Christina's World" hanging on my parents bedroom wall so as an artist and art educator it was one of my first influences. If you enjoy his work I strongly suggest visiting the Brandywine River Museum in Pennsylvania and the Wyeth Center in Rockland, Maine.

“What you have to do is break all the rules.”
Andrew Wyeth, July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009

Modern Art Film Clips

Now that we are wrapping up our discussion about modern art history I wanted to share a few interesting film clips that we spoke about but didn't have time to see in class.


This clip is the commercial Marilyn Minter produced for her art show 100 Food Porn, a revolutionary idea at the time and I'm not just saying that because she was my teacher.


This is an interesting clip with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat showing some of their collaborations and the two artists speaking about their work.


Here's a story about Damien Hirst's Shark at the Metropolitan Museum.


Finally, here's a story that actually shows graffiti artist Bansky working as he stencils the wall separating Israel from Palestine (which may be even more relevant lately due to the recent increased fighting).