Tim Needles blog for art & media art classes at Smithtown H.S. East
Welcome to Art Room 161
This blog was created as an extension of the dialogue that began in our classroom and the purpose is to share creative ideas, images, and critiscm. All posts should be appropriate for the high school classroom and critiscm should be helpful and positive.
We are coming to our final AP Art: Senior Art Shows but Brianne's show didn't fail at making an impact yesterday with over 70 works arranged in layers hanging from the ceiling, on the floor, and on the boards. Her drawings and photographs impressed her teachers, a number of whom such as Mr.Kelly and Mr.Willman who stopped by after school for the opening along with the Art Honor Society and friends.
This Friday is our Media & Art Honor Society spring field trip and one of the show's we'll be seeing is JR's. Above is a great video showing how he did the Times Square pasting last week. Make sure you have you permission slip and check by tomorrow if you plan on joining us, it should be fun and informative!
In Photography class we have our final exam on Wednesday and here is a quizlet to help you review: Photography Review. Additionally with just 16 days of class remaining this week is out 5 week notices so make sure all of you recent assignments are up to date. Above is a great environmental portrait of me teaching class last week by Erica.
Yesterday was Lindsay's art opening and the diverse show had a variety of pieces in different media that show off her sense of humor and ability. The literary magazine joined up with the art club for a big turnout and viewers had a chance to see Lindsay's full portfolio before it's sent off for the AP Studio art test on Friday.
Now that Mr.Needles photographed every student in class it's your turn to go out and photograph students for the PSA Project. Each student should take 20 portraits of students (and that means 20 students not 5 photos of 5 students). I suggest bracketing like I did so that you get a good image of each person.
The Art and Media Art Honor Society have our upcoming spring field trip coming up on Friday May 17 approaching and this year we'll be visiting the galleries of Chelsea, NY, a stop by Mr.Needles' alma mater the School of Visual Arts to see work by Smithtown East AP Art alumni Chris Rodriquez, a walk on the High Line, and lunch at the Chelsea Market. Below are a few of the selected shows that we'll be visiting to take a look at:
This week students in all Mr.Needles classes will be working on the JR Inside Out project along with creating a PSA for the school. Above are some photographs from Mr.Needles 7th period studio art and below are some images from Mr.Needles 5th period media arts class today. The finished PSA will feature about 1000 Smithtown students and will be created by the Media Art Honor Society in conjunction with the SIT team and Mr.Needles media classes.
This Friday is the AP Studio Art exam so this week everyone in class should be busy preparing and matting their 5 Quality pieces for delivery and writing and editing their concentration statements on the AP Digital upload website. Above is an great example which scored a 5/5 on the AP test from a few years ago by former Smithtown HS East student Aidi Wang (who is graduating this year from Hartford School of Art). I'll help you edit the statements on Tuesday but everyone should have a finished written statement by the end of class on Monday along with your 12 Breadth and Concentration pieces uploaded.
In studio arts this week we designed t-shirts in Adobe Illustrator and above is a great example from Shelby, next week we'll go over the specifics of actually creating your own small t-shirt shop such as mine on MySoti
In Photography we are working with the Lens BabyComposer this week taking photographs in the key of Spring outdoors. Above is one of my examples from Wednesday's demo and below is a show film which was shot with a Lens Baby to give you an idea of some of the things it can do. We'll be using the DSLR camera in groups again and there will be a rolling deadline as there was with the portrait project but each student should take at least 5 photos to create a diptych with a border in Photoshop.
Today is Ali's senior show opening and her creative, meditative art and designs have found a good fit in the gallery alongside some eclectic plant life and curiosities. Her completed AP concentration is exhibited and it's nice to see all the pieces together as a whole.
This week's extra credit assignment for Mr.Needles classes is to take 10 good photos of any school event and bring them in to post on MSG Varsity. The assignment was originally posted on Mr.Needles Instagram account (TimNeedles) because of being out with the flu and on Instagram the photos can be hashtaged #needlesclass.
Last week was Jenna's opening and in addition to her enormous talent she showed off her work ethic with hundreds of drawings in all different styles. Her new large portrait pieces are on display in a space where they can be seen together an look great along with her work in figure drawing, illustration, animation, and fan art. Make sure you take a close look at the work before it comes down!
This week in AP art class we will be uploading the AP Studio Art Submissions for the AP test on May 10. Below is the information you need to know to sign up:
School Code: 335001
School: SMITHTOWN HIGH SCH E CAMPUS
Teacher Key: xwt0100
If you have any questions the College Board has a web demo that gives a step by step run through the process.
Our next film project is creating a short children's film for the "Young Filmmaker" category of the Chicago International Children's Film Festival. The films should follow the criteria bulleted below and the film will be due in class in May 8 (the festival entry deadline is May 31st).
The action of the film should be child-driven.
The stories should be culturally authentic, timely, and of universal appeal.
Films submitted to CICFF should be made for, rather than about, children.
Film content should be creative, highly original, and demonstrate artistic and technical mastery.
Content should speak positively to children of diverse backgrounds and cultures & should provide strong role models for both boys and girls.
We'll discuss the details in class and look at some examples but below is a great example of short PSA produced and created by Smithtown East's own Rich Vernillo a few years ago. He created this impressive short about bullying in high school and it went on to gain a huge number of views and acknowledgement.
The upcoming dramatic film The True Story was filming this week in Port Jefferson with two of the actors that I've interviewed as a film journalist: James Franco and Jonah Hill. Crowds turned out Thursday afternoon to see actor Jonah Hill filming in front of Danfords docks and Jonah tweeted about it above. The film ironically isn't set on Long Island but Oregon and tells the story of a journalist's relationship with one of the FBI's most wanted.
This week in photography we are continuing our studio portraits so remenber each person should take at least 15 photos and shoose 3 for a black and white series and 5 for a color series. Above is an great example from our first group featuring Kim and Gigi photographed by Erica.
The first Extra Credit of the 4th quarter watch and write a short one page critique of the Oscar nominated documentary Chasing Ice which will be airing on The National Geographic Channel
starting April 19th, 8pm EST. The film is part of A Night of Exploration - one night each week
throughout 2013 dedicated to the hot shots, the mavericks, and the best in
their field who have devoted their lives to exploring the world around us and
the ground-breaking discoveries that are making a difference.
This week we completed our first digital typography project and the results were diverse and successful. Students had 3 different options in terms of creating a design for their "bucket list" of things they wanted to accomplish in life and here are two great examples from Jess (above) and Reny (below) that used totally different techniques
.
In photography class we recently worked on creating a modern digital version of Man Ray's photogram technique of creating an image without a camera. We used a scanner and a layering technique in Adobe Photoshop to create our images of objects that we had on us. Here are a 3 great examples from: Meg, Erica, and Sarah which are all successful and manage to bring a unique perspective.
Today I'm out sick but don't worry I'm home finishing up your grades not at a wild beach party. Being that it is National Poetry Month it does bring to mind one of my favorite poems by Pedro Pietri, co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Café in NYC which I posted below and on video form above.
In studio art class we are finishing up our digital typography project and beginning the type art portrait that I introduced last week so if anyone is finished early you can choose any poet off of this list on Poets.org and find an image, a short bio of the poet, and a sample of their writing to work from and I'll introduce the specifics tomorrow. All my other classes should continue working on their current projects, I'll see you soon!
Telephone Booth #905 1/2 by Pedro Pietri
Woke up this morning
feeling excellent,
picked up the telephone
dialed the number of my
equal opportunity employer
to inform him i will not
be in to work today.
“are you feeling sick?”
the boss asked me
“no sir,” i replied:
“i am feeling too good
to report to work today.
if i feel sick tomorrow
i will come in early!”
Last week in class we looked at some great letterpress type design and some different emotive type examples so this week we are working on you personal manifesto which can be in either style. You should have created a list of the different aspirations you have in life and this week we will turn those thoughts into art either by hand like in the amazing Holstee design by the artist Tekst above (which is documented in the video below) or on the computer like the example we looked at last week. The choice is yours but either way the final design should be turned in digitally by Wednesday.
In Photography we have been working on combining images in order to create a narrative or mood and here are two successful examples that use different approaches from Tianna (above) and Meg (below). The assignment is due today so make sure to finish it up, save it as a JPEG, and then we'll share and critique them.
Yesterday was Meghan's senior art show which featured some fluorescent Día de Muertos inspired art and design as well as some colorful cupcakes. The Solstice literary club joined the art honor society for the opening and everyone was impressed except for Lindsay who wasn't allowed to have any cupcakes!
We learned about the basics of typography in class and now it's time to bring a creative approach to what we learned. The image above of the Holstee Manifesto is a great example of great type design and it was created using the old fashioned letterpress technique shown in the video clip below.
We are going to take this design concept and use digital technology to create something similar. We are going to use the designer Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich's work for inspiration. He collaborated with Mucca Design and Adobe on a fantastic project called Words at Play which helped advertise Adobe's program with educational and unique images of authors made with type along with information about them and the font. They project won some coveted awards and was eventually developed into a print book shown below.
Each student in class will create a word portrait in a similar way of a different author and being that it is National Poetry Month I will create a demo today of one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins. Before starting the design we will research the writer and read some of their word to match their style with their design. here's a terrific poem titled Forgetfulness by Billy Collins that was turned into a short film by JWT.
In the TED talk below Billy, who was a two-term U.S. Poet Laureate, explains the project and how his poems were animated for the Sundance Channel.
Congratulations to Smithtown High School East's Gabby Lynn who's photograph was included in the Heckscher Museum's 2013 Long Island's Best Show. Students from 49 high schools across Long Island submitted artwork for jurying and from the hundreds of submissions Curator Lisa Chalif selected only 80 for display.
All
of the pieces were inspired by works shown at the museum and both the student
work and the inspiration pieces will be on view at the museum until April 21,
2013.
Congratulations
to Smithtown High School East AP Artists: Brianne Hart, Devon James, (pictured above with Mr.Needles and Congressman Tim Bishop)Ali Parisi,
and Kerin Grisanti whose work was included in this year's Congressional Art
Show at the Lyceum Gallery in Riverhead. The show was juror was chosen by East End Arts
Council and the exhibit’s opening was Saturday where they joined a selection students
from schools across the 1st Congressional District and Congressman Tim Bishop who
awarded them a special Congressional certificate of achievement.
We will be learning about the fundamentals of Graphic Design and Typography. The next assignment will have 3 parts and the first part, creating expressive type design, will be the final grade for quarter 3. An example of great expressive type can be seen her on the artful artsy amy blog. We will be watching a clip of type designer David Carson's TED talk from 2009 about the power of type with examples of his grunge type designs. His advice below is something for artists of any kind to take to heart:
“You have to utilize who you are in your work. Nobody else can do that: nobody else can pull from your background, from your parents, your upbringing, your whole life experience.”
Yesterday was the opening of Devon's senior show which was filled with her unique style and color palette which is appropriate for spring. Her quirky mixed media pieces and eclectic decorations entertained the big crowd for her show. The work will be up for a week so if you haven't seen the show be sure to stop by.
Smithtown alumni Dominique Maciejka stopped by to visit the AP Art class at Smithtown East today and talk about her creative career and her new fashion store in Sayville, the Paper Doll Vintage Boutique. Her new look book shows off some of her work and she talked about the process of finding her way in her career after graduation Smithtown and going to college at SAIC. She also spoke about selling pieces to many designers such as Michael Kors who used them as inspirations for their collections. She was in the AP class before she graduated in Smithtown in 2002 so she also talked a little bit about her creative concentration theme of traveling for which creating 3D dioramas inside of vintage suitcases that were back lit with lights.
This week in class we studied Henri Matisse's cutout art and the Chapel of the Rosary and today we will continue creating out digital cutouts based on Matisse's work. They example above is from Mark in 4th period and it's a perfect example because it satisfies all the : it has at least 5 different bright "fauvist" colors, it has organic shapes (along with geometric shapes), it was saves as a 8"x10" jpeg, and it also contains words that are hand created which is optional but impressive. Tomorrow we will have a short quiz on what we learned.
Congrats to Brianne Hart who
poster design was chosen as a finalist for this year’s Shanti Poster Contest.
The contest focuses on promoting peace through art and education. Her painting was chosen from hundreds across Long island to be included in
the 7th annual Shanti calendar.
Congrats to Clay Sontag and Gabby Lynn from Mr. Needles AP
Studio Art class who were chosen as honorable mentions in Photo Forum Magazine's 33rd Annual College & High School Photography Contest. Their
images are posted on the website’s winner’s gallery and will be published in
their new hardcover book. Their work was part of a very selective group
chosen from over 16,000 entries from USA, Canada and internationally.
Congratulations go out to Gabby who's piece pictured above was chosen for the 2013 Long Island's Best: Young Artists at The Heckscher Museum which will be on view March 30, 2013 - April 21, 2013! Over the past 17 years, this program has grown to become a prestigious
opportunity; it is the only juried exhibition on Long Island that offers high
school students the opportunity to show their artwork in an art museum.
