AP Art: The 2016 Armory Show

Today we'll look at some of the inspiring art and creative trends from this years Armory Show in NYC.  the work above features me and is from artist Douglas Coupland for his project with Art.sy and Daniel Faria Gallery.

Digital Media: Bring Your Action Figure To Work Day

Today we have our quiz on the basics of animation and afterwards we'll collaborate on a fun, short STEAM animation.  We will work together to create a short animation celebrating 'Bring Your Action Figure To Work Day' aka #AFWD2016.  I brought in a few of my favorite action figures so we will have 20 minutes to write, film, edit, and post our film on social media to share it.  I'll post the videos below after they are complete:

Digital Media Period 3
 

 Media Art Period 6
 

Digital Media Period 7
 

Media Arts: Animation Test

In Media Arts class we are beginning the Squash and Stretch Animation Challenge will be due tomorrow and we'll review the basics of animation and Frank & Ollie's Twelve Basic Principles of Animation for our first test tomorrow.

AP Art: 2016 Senior Art Show 1 Mikenzie

Our annual AP Art Senior Art Shows began this Wednesday with Mikenzie's opening.  She's the first student from High School East who has taken AP Art for 3 years in a row and the first to take all 3 AP Art tests (Drawing, 2D, & 3D) so she has a plethora of diverse work in multiple media.  Be sure to check out the show if you haven't, it's up until Monday!

AP Art: Seuss Day

Today is Theodor Geisel's aka Dr.Seuss so we'll be celebrating Youth Art Month by creating a short video of illustrations from some of his best quotes and sharing it with art lovers around the world vis social media.

Heckscher Museum: Long Island's Best Art Entries

This year's Long Island's Best Art: Young Artists at the Heckscher Museum competition is coming up so students who viewed the art work in one of this year's shows, created a work in response, and submitted a written entry are eligible. The example above on the right is a new work by Rosalie who was also a finalist last year in AP Art in response to Garry Winogrand's photo to the left New York, 1965.(Blonde woman with wind-blown hair).  The school will submit 4 entries so the completed pieces should be framed with a completed entry form attached on the rear by Monday March 28 when they need to be dropped of by 5pm.

Digital Media: The basics of animation

In Digital Media class we are learning the basics of animation and focusing on Frank & Ollie's Twelve Basic Principles of Animation.  We will watch how of the the rules of animation apply and what happens when you don't follow the rules.  We will then incorporate the learning into our collaborative film and our animation challenges.

The March extra credit assignment is to create a post-it note animation like the example below that uses the post-its rather than drawing on them.

NAEA Outstanding Teaching Award

I was thrilled to learn this month that I will be awarded the National Art Education Association's AET Outstanding Teaching Award.  It was an honor to be nominated by Rebecca Mir of the Guggenheim Museum and it was great being featured in Newsday's WINNERS column this week.  I'm especially grateful that such esteemed colleges and former students had a hand in the nomination process.  I'm looking forward to traveling to Chicago next month for the NAEA National Conference to receive the award and share some of the great art we do here at Smithtown East as I present a hands-on session on how we incorporate Digital Drawing and Creative Coding in classes.

Digital Media: Animation Challenges

In Digital Media Class we will be working on weekly 6 second Animation Challenges using Vine.  For 4 weeks there will be a new challenge to animate each week that students should complete by weeks end.  Each challenge has a theme and some specifics to include and they can all be shared on social media using the hashtag #needlesclass.

We will be learning the basics of how to animate and study Disney's Twelve Basic Principles of Animation while we are in class as well as collaborating on a larger animation project together.

Week 1: The Loop: Create a looping animation that includes sound and has a basic story arch

Week 2: Post-its: Create an animation on post-it notes and film it somewhere untraditional

Week 3: Squash & Stretch: Use the laws of physics to make an animation that compresses then extends while moving

Week 4: Interactive: Create an animation that interacts with something in real life

Studio Art: Masking Monoprints

After creating our first monoprints in Studio Art class we will take monoprinting to the next level by adding drawing and layer masks like the example above from AP Art and below from last years SCALA art show.  Each student should create a portrait of a person, animal, or thing on printmaking paper in pencil or ink, cut a stencil mask and print over it creating a mixed media piece.  These prints will be due next Friday March 4.

Today I'm @babylonarts for the #SCALA #student #art show representing 2 of my terrific #SmithtownEast #APart students pic.twitter.com/rSxqoowIpy

— Tim Needles (@timneedles) February 7, 2015

Digital Media: Collaborative Animation

In Digital Media class we are going to work together in groups of 2-3 to create a collaborative animation to teach younger students about the basics of digital citizenship.  Each group will create a short animated 6-12 second segment describing and illustrating one of the 9 P's of media literacy shown above.  We'll combine all the segments and add voice overs to create the finished film.  We will then share the film with students in the elementary and middle schools.

In order to teach the information to younger students we will really need to understand it well so we will learn about it in class today and research later in the week to find examples to illustrate each of the segments.

Example: In learning copyright we learned about the creative commons licence as opposed to the traditional copyright and free use along with how it works for groups like Hit Record

The final animation is due from each group by next Friday, March 4.

Studio Art: Gelli Printing

In Studio Art we are beginning our printmaking unit with Gelli mono-printing.  We'll begin by creating interesting stencils to use- they can be random organic or geometric shapes or more specific imagery.



We will then create a series of 2 mono-prints that relate to each other, in the art world this is called a diptych.

Digital Media: Animation Challenge

In Digital Media class we will introduce animation with a shot 6 second challenge to create a hand drawn, looping animation using Vine. We will learn the basics in class and the animation will be due on Friday. We will share the animations by using #needlesclass to hand in the work digitally. Try to be creative and come up with a unique and fun short animated film.

Art Honor Society: Inspiring Mural Created by HSE Artists

Here's an article about our recent work with the Wyland Foundation Water For Life mural project that I wanted to share before our winter vacation- enjoy the break!

Smithtown High School East art students in Tim Needles’ drawing class collaborated with the science department and the National Art Honor Society to create a mural to enter into the annual Wyland Foundation’s National “Water is Life” Mural and Art Challenge. Their “Protecting Our Oceans” creation featured dolphins, marine animals, wildlife and a boat over an illuminated sky. 

This year’s contest was themed “Our Coasts and Climate,” and the foundation and its partners provided 100 schools with educational materials and 50-square-foot canvas murals to look at the economic, cultural and aesthetic value of the world's ocean resources. The contest encouraged students to work together while studying climate issues. 

The mural depicts the full eastern coast of the United States with local marine life and landmarks such as Stony Brook University’s R/V Seawolf research vessel in Port Jefferson. Winners will be announced in late January.

Media Art: Character Development

In Media Art class we are currently developing characters that we will be working with in animation.  we begin by sketching out ideas then create a character sheet like the one above of Kent Brockman from The Simpsons.  Next we will create a short pencil test animation of our character moving, below are a few examples of pencil test animations from The Simpsons and independent animator Bill Plympton's.

Digital Media: Digital Drawing Quotes

In Digital Media class we are finishing up our first digital drawing project which is due today.  The example by Lucas above shows what the finished product should look like.  As we finish up the   Digital Drawing Quote designs make sure you have the following:

• Landscape dimensions about 10"x6", 300 res
• Portrait has filled in pupils & runs off the page
• Portrait is facing their quote
• Quotes before and after statement
• Colored background
• Black or White .5" border
• Impact typeface (28pt)
• #needlesclass in bottom left (20pt)

We will finish up these designs today and prepare them to be shared on social media and in school in March as part of YAM Youth Arts Month.

AP Art: Scholastic Design Contest

Today we will be working on a new design contest for scholastic awards students for Neiman Marcus. Students who submitted in the fashion and jewelry categories of the 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are invited to submit 2D designs of holiday ornaments. Students will have the chance to have their design transformed into a small, 3D ornament and distributed to Neiman Marcus stores across the country at the end of 2016. The student who submits the winning design will also:

• Work with a professional sculptor to translate the 2D design into a 3D design.
• Be featured in Neiman Marcus’s national publication, the book, which reaches more than 250,000 of its customers.
• Have their signature on the back of the ornament, along with the Neiman Marcus logo.
• Receive a $1,000 scholarship!

Digital Media: Drawing With Robots

This week in Digital Media each class will construct a robot that will be designed to draw.  Doodle bots (or drawing robots) are great, collaborative STEAM projects that can incorporate art and technology along with some creativity and ingenuity.  I'll help each class gather supplies but students will work together to create the class robot and to design a way for it to draw or paint.

After the class collaborates on creating a robot together we will form smaller groups and students will be given a selection of little bits and some everyday objects from around the school and work together to create their own drawing robots.  We'll hold a creative forum with each of the groups presenting their drawing robots and see which designs are most successful and why.

Art Honor Society: The Smithtown East Burgerman Mural

I'm thrilled to announce that today we I was awarded the Smithtown Children's Foundation Teachers Grant which will complete our funding for the National Art Honor Society's Smithtown East Mural with artist Jon Burgerman.  I'm so excited that we will be working together on this great project this spring!  Today we will work on planning some of the details and get up to date on the proposals.

Yesterday I presented the mural project with the School Improvement Team to the principal who approved it and was excited to hear about the work we've been doing and the future mural.  We also presented some of the design work we have been doing in class to revitalize the courtyard and make it a more accessible place for students and the school at large.

Tonight I'll be attending the Eighth Annual Kisses for Kaylee & Friends Dinner Dance at The Watermill Inn to accept the grant!

Extra Credit: 28 to Make

The Creative Live website is hosting a free month long creative challenge course in February.  Each week will count as an extra credit assignment if complete all 7 days of work and share it with their #28daystomake hashtag with #needlesclass.  It's a great opportunity to learn from some creative professionals and share your work in the community.  You do need to sign up but the project is free this month.

Week 1

Celebrating everyday objects through drawing with Kate Bingaman-Burt

Week 2

Exploring line, form, and texture with Ryan Putnam

Week 3

Hacking visual language and creative thinking with Lara McCormick

Week 4

Connecting to your context through observation and lettering with Erik Marinovich

Weekends

You'll get the same 2 videos every weekend, when you'll be encouraged to take in the sights and relax with Brooks Chambers

You can sing up here and you'll be able to see the inspiration video each day that will give you the creative prompt.  I'll be doing the assignment as well so I hope to see you join us!

Film and Media: Welcome

Today is the first day of our new Film and Media class so welcome!  We'll review the work we'll be doing this year in class and talk about the 8 films that were recently nominated for Best Picture Oscars to begin.  We'll also learn the basics of stop motion animation and film editing which we'll be using for the rest of the year!

Edcamp Global

I'm excited to be virtually attending Edcamp Global Classrooms which began this morning and runs for a full 24 hours hours until tomorrow morning.  If you are not aware Edcamps are educational 'un-conferences' in which educators and in this case students volunteer and share the'r expertise and experience with free workshops.

This morning I attended a great workshop to start Edcamp Global Classrooms off about using robots for coding in the classroom led by Jenny Lussier with Donna Macdonald and Andy Plemmons on Google Hangout.  I learned a bit about what teachers and students are doing in schools coding with Sphero and Finch robots.

I'll be attending workshops all day but I'm really looking forward to joining my #k12artchallenge pal Arlene Shelton and her class this afternoon on Periscope, Twitter, and Google Hangout for a STEAM studio sharing some of their STEAM artwork with 3D printers, engravers, and robotics.  Any students that have some spare time today after the mid-term exams are encouraged to join a session and learn about some of the classroom work other schools are doing around the world!

Nationa Art Education Association's 2016 AET Outstanding Teaching Award

I was extremely honored this week to learn that I will be the recipient of The National Art Education Association's 2016 AET Outstanding Teaching Award.  This is a tremendous honor made all the more special by my nomination which came from my innovative art education colleague Rebecca Mir of the Guggenheim Museum.  I'm looking forward to traveling to Chicago in March to the NAEA National Conference where I will recieve the award and showcase some of the work we have done here at Smithtown merging art and technology at our developing makerspace in Digital Media class.

Drawing: End of the semester

Today is the final day of drawing class and I must say it has truely been a pleasure!  We will finish our collaborative Walt Whitman portrait in pencil, complete our last mural, and wrap up all the grading.  Before we come to a close I wanted to share the photo above of our two Shanti Peace Calender winners from class- artwork from Illysa and Kyle were both chosen for this year's claendar so congradulations!  I hope all of you enjoyed class, learned, and choose to continue on the creative path in the future-best of luck!

AP Art: James Victore

I had a chance to meet up with artist and designer James Victore in Brooklyn yesterday as he was preparing to move his studio to Texas.  We have used his design work as an inspiration in class for a number of assignments in recent years as well as discussing some of his Burining Questions.



I asked James if he had any advice for art students and he said to share that "the things make you weird as a kid make you great today" and it's especially important to remember it in high school!

Drawing: Walt Whitman

Our last Drawing assignment will be a collaborative portrait of the great poem and former Smithtown teacher Walt Whitman.  Walt Whitman taught in the Smithtown school district in the late 1890s in a one room school house and had 85 students on his roster although at the time attendance wasn't compulsory and the actual attendance was usually much smaller. We will be dividing the image above of Whitman at 50 years old up into a grid and each student will draw a portion of the grid which will combine into a large portrait that will be hung.  

If you are not that aware of Whitman's work, his quintessential book of poetry Leaves of Grass is a great place to start and I'd like to share a piece of his advice with you from it's forward:

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body"

MLKDay

yesterday was MLKDay so this week we will take so time to remember Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and work.  Above is a drawing that I created on MLKday that serves as an example for our challenge this week.  This week we will talk about the message Dr. King spread and look at art that has a social impact.

Studio Art: Artist Trading Card Interpretation

Our final assignment for the semester in Studio Art class is to take the Artist Trading Card's we received from K-6 students around the world via the MiniMatisse ATC exchange and create an artistic interpretation like the example above from Emily.  Some cards have more information than others but we will choose cards blind and your work just needs to have a basis in the ATC.  The response works should be larger than ATC's so use your sketchbook and we will share and collect them on Thursday January 21.

EdcampNYC 2016 Reflection

This weekend I traveled to The Mandell School in Manhattan to attend Edcamp NYC.  If you're not familiar with Edcamps, they are "unconferences" where educators show up and share their expertise volunteering to lead sessions the day of the event by writing their names down on a board.

I was immediately impressed by the facilities and overall feel of the Mandell School.  The classroom design was terrific and it was clearly a great environment for education.  They had rooftop gardens, and terrific visuals created by students with bright, positive classrooms- a space that made inspiration quite a bit easier to get to.  I joined the group of educators for breakfast and started my day with a session on designing makerspaces with Jeremy Sambuca of the Hewitt School.  He shared some great insights on the process of creating a makerspace along with some really valuable lessons he learned for better and for worse.

I also stopped into Lisa Nielsen's session on effective ways to share with social media and Twitter.  Lisa had some great tips about using Twitter statistics and deconstructed what a killer tweet looked like for an educator.  In the second session I joined some of my creative art colleagues for a session on Art Driven Curriculum led by Mandell School teachers Tiffany Della Vedova and James Long who shared some curriculum examples they use and opened up the discussion to the group.  There were some great lessons shared that begin with art and merge into other subjects such as social art projects inspired by the work of Allora & Calzadilla and the Shadow People Project.

"Your digital footprint is your new resume" Love @mssackstein @TonySinanis & @RossCoops31's relaxed #edcampNYC talk! pic.twitter.com/sFC2NdeY38

— Tim Needles (@timneedles) January 9, 2016

I then joined a session on blogging and branding led by Starr Sackstein, Tony Sinanis, and Ross Cooper that was a wonderfully intimate conversation rather than a formal workshop.  I've talked to Starr about the regular blogging  she does at other Edcamps and she always has great insights and didn't disappoint. Tony shared some of his methodology on blogging and branding and Ross shared a great quote which I tweeted above: "Your digital footprint is your new resume".

After EdcampNYC I attended the after party at the Dazzling Discoveries Makerspace a few blocks away and I experimented designing with their DazzLinks shown in the photo above.  I also had a chance to do some 3D printing using Tinkercad and their Makerbots and printed one of our class architectural designs from last month's 3D #k12artchallenge.



EdcampNYC was a great experience overall. It was a day full of learning, sharing, and connecting and well worth the drive in on a Saturday morning!

Drawing: Mini-Comics

This week we are drawing and designing Mini-Comics in Studio Art and Drawing class.  We learned early in the week about the basic elements of a story, the folding techniques, and the variations in the media.  Today we begin drawing and designing our own.

You can base you comic on the character you created in our warm-up cartooning activities or start create new characters but the final comic should include 8 pages including a cover with your name and a title and a back with Smithtown High School East and Mr. Needles written.

After you comic is shaded, toned, and/or colored you should open it back up to one piece of paper and scan it.  We will be scanning these comics after they are completed to show and trade them.

AP Art: Heckscher Art Museum Long Island's Best

This week we will be working on creating pieces for the Heckscher Art Museum's Long Island's Best contest which we enter in February.  Students should choose an inspiration piece that was shown in the museum in the past year and use it as a basis for a response work.  The response should be original and not done in a different artist's style but a reaction that has a relationship with the original work of art in some way.  Above is a image form the exhibit Street Life: Private Moments/Public Record from photographer Berenice Abbott entitled "Fulton Street Fish Market" that is currently showing in the museum and below is an image of Rosalie and I with her photograph from last year that was chosen for the exhibition in the museum.  In addition to the museum show the contest awards a number of financial scholarships.

Drawing: Artist Trading Cards

This week we received our MiniMatisse exchange Artist Trading Cards back from classes around the world including: Los Angeles, Kentucky, Vermont, Minnesota, New Jersey, Illinois, and Croatia.  I've been handing out the ATCs to all the students that sent theirs out.  We are beginning a project in which advanced art students will use ATCs from young artists in elementary school as an inspiration for a new piece which interprets their vision.  Below is an example from Luke in Drawing Class to give you an idea of how it works but you don't need to work in the same size, you interpretation can be bigger and use any media.  The final pieces will be due after Martin Luther King day, the last week of the semester.

Digital Media: Redesigning the School Courtyard

In Digital Media we will be working with the School Improvement Team to re-design the school's courtyard and we will focus on 3 parts: landscaping, sculpture, and space usage.  We will start by working on ideas for interactive sculptures which can add an art element and can also be used as seating.  Below are a few good inspirational examples of the types of interactive sculptural seating that would work for our space.  We will design our seating using 3D Printing in Tinkercad.

Drawing: #OneWord

My Smithtown East HS #art & #drawing students chose #oneword for #2016 inspired by alumni @JonGordon11's @getoneword https://t.co/v3t6owzCQr

— Tim Needles (@timneedles) January 6, 2016

When we returned to school after the winter break Monday we began on a positive, hopeful note with the #oneword resolution project for 2016 based on alumni Jon Gordon'e book.  I showcased some of the designs from Studio Art, AP Art, and Drawing into a short Vine that I shared via social media yesterday which you can see above.

Drawing Class: Artist Trading Cards

The Artist Trading Cards we made earlier in the year in AP, Drawing, and Studio Art Class are now beginning to reach their destinations around the word and our cards should arrive shortly.  I received the tweet below from Abby Schukei, an art teacher colleague in Ralston,Nebraska who received some of our cards.  I'll post any other cards that are spotted out in the world here and to my twitter account, I'm curious where they all end up!

.@timneedles looks like I received some of your students' ATC! #K12ArtChat pic.twitter.com/vDiLB4g2BR

— Abby Schukei (@ARTschukei) January 5, 2016

Happy New Year: One Word

Happy New Year everyone! Today we are going to work one creating a #OneWord resolution for 2016 and making it a graphic image we can use for inspiration.  This concept comes from author and speaker Jon Gordon who came from Smithtown along with Jimmy Page (not the Led Zeppelin guitarist) and Dan Britton who wrote the book One Word that Will Change Your Life.  Jon Gordon returned to Smithtown speak here a few years ago and was inspirational, below is a look at his Football highlight reel from the late 1980's which appears to be taken here at Smithtown East at points.



The idea behind choosing one word is that it's simple, memorable, and more realistic as a driving force for you but it's important to be authentic and think about what you really need in your life before choosing a word.  Here's a clip of Jon on the Today Show talking about the process and the questions to ask yourself when considering your word.  I chose my word. CREATE, early this year and painted it on the classroom wall as a daily reminder which has made an impact.

We are going to talk about how to choose your one word then you will create an 8"x10" design incorporating the word to use for inspiration.  Tomorrow we'll finish our designs and then Wednesday we'll share our work and talk about our goals and why we choose the words we did. Remember to keep it positive and focused, we are starting out on a blank slate in 2016!

Happy Holidays

Today is the final day of class in 2015 so I'd like to wish everyone a happy holiday and a terrific winter break.  Today the I will join students from the Art Honor Society to deliver 250 hand-made holiday cards to the Mills Pond Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in St. James that were created by the honor society and students in classes.  Pictured above is the AP Art class with some of the cards the created before our secret snowflake gift exchange.