Studio Art: Designers who Impact NY

In Studio Art we are learning about 2 more great designers today in class who have each made a big impact on NY: Milton Glaser and Massimo Vignelli.  We'll learn about their history and designs as well as some of their impact on what we see each day.  They will be included with the previous designers we learned about on our test next week.

Photographers Forum Contest 2017

Congratulations to Jillian Davis from AP Art and National Art Honor Society who's photograph shown above was chosen as a Finalist in Photographers Forum 37th Annual 2017 High School and College competition.  Her image will be featured in Photographer’s Forum’s limited edition hardcover book Best of College & High School Photography 2017.

Studio Art: Book Jacket re-design

In Studio Art we learned about our first 2 designers: Chip Kidd and David Carson.  Now we will create designs using the information we learned about the process beginning with a book jacket.  We will each re-design a jacket for our favorite book using the design principals we learned and the advice each of the designers gave on respecting the audience's intellect and legibility's interaction with communication.

The Harry Potter dust jacket book cover above by Kathie Bayne is a good example of what basics should be included and what a finished design looks like.  You can choose any book you like to redesign as long as it's in the school library.  Below is an additional TED talk by Chip Kidd in which he discusses designing books for authors like Charles Schultz, David Sedaris, and David Rakoff.

AP Studio Art: 31 Nights Extra Credit

The March Extra Credit assignment for AP and Studio Art is Michael Bell's 31 Nights #k12artchallenge you can view some samples of the work above in different media.  I learned about 31 nights this weekend at the NAEA convention and it seems like an interesting series of prompts that can be varied and allow for great art.

Above are the first 7 self-portrait themes- interpret them in a personal and original way and be creative!  Feel free to share them on social media with the #k12artchallenge and #31nights hashtags. The extra credit is due by the end of the month, March 31.

Studio Art: Chess Set Design

In Studio Art we are each creating our own unique Chess Set Design.  We will start by sketching out designs and coloring them in our sketchbooks and then move to Tinkercad to create 3D models.

A standard game of chess, each of the two players begins a game with the following 16 chess pieces:

• 1 king.
• 1 queen.
• 2 rooks.
• 2 bishops.
• 2 knights.
• 8 pawns.

Digital Media: 3D printing

In Digital Media we are beginning to 3D print our designs in class so they must all be saved as a STL file and be sized appropriately to print on the Makerbot.

While the printing is occurring we will also be working on re-designs for our new classroom including seating, desks, layout, color, and concept.  We want to create a better space for learning and one that encourages creativity.  so we will create a blueprint and a digital perspective model.  Below are basic examples of what that might look like for a traditional classroom but remember this is an art room so keep it colorful and creative!

Film: Drawn Animation

In film class our next challenge is to create a short 6-10 second drawn animation which will due on Friday.  The basic rules is that the animation needs to loop so the end must match the beginning.  An easy way to create a drawing animation is to morph like the student example above.

We are also working on the beginning of our spec script, the first 15 formatted pages are due on Wednesday.  You can use the free template on Microsoft Word or this one for Google Docs: Google screenplay formatter

Our first extra credit assignment is also due on Wednesday and a good example is the winning short animation from Sunday's Oscar ceremony, Piper from Disney.

Welcome Back From Winter Break

Welcome Back From Winter Break!  I was in Spain and France and had a great time explore Barcelona, Figueres, Bilbao, and Paris over the break.  It was great to visit creative locations such as Antoni Gaudí's famous Park Güell in Barcelona seen above.  The food and culture is tremendous, one of my favorite Spanish foods is churros y chocolate seen below.

I also visited Salvador Dalí's house and museum in Figueres which was like visiting the mind of the artist himself with surrealistic room designs where the artist lived and worked later in his life and were he was buried.

It also houses one of his coolest pieces, a room seen below which is a portrait of actress Mae West when viewed from the right perspective.

I also had the chance to visit the amazing Guggenheim Bilbao Museum designed by architect Frank Gehry which also houses Jeff Koons iconic 'Puppy' sculpture.

AP Art: Heckscher Museum's Long Island Best Show

Today is the final day before winter break and it's also the last day to enter your work into the Heckscher Museum's Long Island Best Show.  Above is an example of a piece that Anna created based on the drawing by Roz Dimon from the Long Island Biennial 2016 shown below.

Film: The Pixilation

In Film class we learned about the first basic form of animation: The Pixilation.  Above are a few of the best examples of the form including PEZ, Aardman Animations, and the Brothers Quay.  We will begin by using the free app VINE camera to create a short pixilation animation between 6-10 seconds by this Friday February 17.

Art Honor Society: Our Upcoming Field Trip To NYC Museums

In Art Honor Society we will be participating in a field trip to NYC to visit the Cooper Hewitt Museum and Museum Mile on St. Patrick's Day in March.  Above is a great example of some of designer James Victore's work, an artist we study in class, that is featured in one of the exhibits.

The Cooper Hewitt has some really great, new design features such as digital touchscreen tables where you can research, play, and create using the digital pen you receive on entry.  You can also use the backside of your pen to store your favorite items- here's some of my favorites from my visit this weekend: Tim Needles Cooper Hewitt Visit.

One of the highlights of the museum is the immersion room in which you can draw and design on a digital table and have it projected onto the digital walls like wallpaper.  Here's the basic of how to use the digital pen below:

Digital Media: Finch Robots

In Digital Media class we are working on writing code for our new Finch Robots.  Today we will be seeing how well our coding works by turning them into drawing robots and creating some robotic art in class!

A4 Technology can enable students to progress at their own pace & to merge learning in & out of school seamlessly! #tlap pic.twitter.com/jwf0Cz07qE

— Tim Needles (@timneedles) February 14, 2017

Studio Art: Designing Video Games

Last week we designed 2 short video games using coding thanks to Code.org and this week we will continue working of design projects by creating a peace poster design for the Shanti fund's annual contest.  Makes sure your computer coding is completed by Tuesday if it is not already and that the class codes listed below are entered:

Period 1- HPTPDZ    Period 7- HQGGSK

Japan Society Junior Fellows Program

We are nearing the end of the submission period Japan Society Junior Fellows Program so if you want to try to host a Japanese student here at Smithtown East and travel to Japan this summer check out the link above for more information.  This is our 4th year of participating in the program and it's been an informative and exciting experience!

Scholastic art and writing awards

Today is the announcement for the Scholastic art and writing awards regional winners and I am very proud to announce that we won an all-time record for our school- 8 Gold Key awards, 3 Silver Key awards, and 2 Honorable Mention awards.  A big congratulations to the following students:

Luke Gelfman-
1  Gold Key in Design
3 Gold Keys in Drawing and Illustration
1 Silver Key in Drawing and Illustration

Anna Koke-
1 Gold Key in Printmaking

Danielle Napoli-
2 Gold Keys in  Printmaking
1 Honorable Mention in Photography

Kelsey Opinante-
1 Silver Key in Comic Art

Stephanie Rowe-
1 Silver Key in Comic Art

Ilysa Sirota-
1 Honorable Mention in Mixed Media

Jamie Werner-
1 Gold Key in Fashion

Art Honor Society: Sketchbook Project 2017

Today in Art Honor Society we will continue work on our 2017 collaborative Sketchbook Project, you can view the first 3 pages which are currently in process below by Mr. needles, Anna, and Emily. For this year's theme we decided to have each artist use the previous drawing as inspiration much like the telephone game.

We will also go over the details of our upcoming field trip to NYC to visit the Cooper Hewitt Museum along with it's highlights like the wallpaper room shown below and we'll discuss our Spring mural designs and exhibition.

 

AP Art: CW Post's Advanced Visions 13 Art Exhibit

Smithtown High School East AP Art students Luke Gelfman and Samantha Cheng had artwork chosen to be included in the Long Island University CW Post Advanced Visions 13 art exhibit this month.  The annual exhibition of student work acknowledges the high-quality, superior work being done by high school students in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate throughout the Long Island.

Luke Gelfman's mixed media ink drawing was chosen as an honorable mention in an awards ceremony on Wednesday, Jan. 18, by the Long Island University (LIU) Post Art Department and in a prepared statement about the art work the staff pointed out the drawing's "unique creative nature" mentioning that "it's one of those images that the more you look at it, the more it reveals to you."

Studio Art: Fashion Design

In Studio Art class we will continue our design unit be creating original T-shirt designs this week which we can actually produce.  We will begin by learning the basics of Adobe Photoshop and how to digitally edit drawings on the computer.  We will then move on to sketching out ideas on paper and drawing a design which we'll then translate to the computer and digitize.  We will be learning a number of new terms in Photoshop so we'll review them Friday with a quiz.

Here are some examples of shirts created by Mr. Needles to give you and idea of what to expect.

End of Semester 1

Today is the End of Semester 1 so for some classes it's the end of last day of class and the final exam.  Here's a short parting video to support you continuing your journey in creating and exploring art!

Digital Media students you can study for todays midterm exam on our Midterm Quizlet

Photography students you can study for todays final exam on our Final Quizlet

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr Day

Drawing to celebrate #MartinLutherKingDay - "The time is always right to do what is right." #MLKDAY https://t.co/ZjQfLHP67f

— Tim Needles (@timneedles) January 16, 2017

We will be celebrating Martin Luther King Jr Day this week in class along with President Obama's last day in office this week in AP Art class by creating art reflective of public service and peace aimed at next year's Shanti Peace Poster contest.

Studio Art: Marilyn Minter

This week in Studio Art we will be taking our midterm which includes the artists we learned about in out art history unit so I thought it was fitting to share some photographs from the Marilyn Minter exhibition I attended this weekend.  We learned about Minter's work in our unit and you might remember that she was my painting instructor in college but seeing some of the newer works up close was really interesting.  

The Brooklyn Museum show was a retrospective and some of the work is NSFW but here's a few pieces that reference what we learned about in class and you might enjoy.  There's also some great insights into her process with images of the grids, colors, and palettes she used.

Below is an image with a reflection of the light on a painting in which you can see the fingerprints from the final layering of enamel paint.

Finally don't forget to study the quizlet studio art material tonight for our in class midterm tomorrow!

Digital Media: Design in Technology

The 2nd part of the Vans Custom Culture contest that we are working on in Studio Art and Digital Media class is to create a poster design based in Design in Technology so I thought this TED talk by John Maeda might be a good way to start the process this week to think about art, design and technology.  the Poster design can be in any media and should be 8.5" x 11".  we will sketch out ideas and complete the poster design by Friday, it will be the final grade for the quarter.


For those of you that are still working here's a video with some insight on some other school's Vans designs.

AP Art: Final Breadth

Today in AP Art our final Breadth piece is due which should complete our 1st section of the AP test.  Each student should choose their strongest 12 breadth pieces for the AP test and photograph them to submit the 12 digital images by Thursday next week.

Art Honor Society: Vans Custom Culture Contest

Today in Art Honor Society we will begin work on the Vans Custom Culture Contest.  the video above is from a few years ago but much of the information has changed notably the addition component which is listed below and the trip this year is to Los Angeles, CA.

The ADDITIONAL DESIGN COMPONENT: STUDENTS ARE CHALLENGED TO CREATE A DESIGN OR PRINT THAT BEST EXEMPLIFIES TECHNOLOGY IN DESIGN ON A SUPPLIED 11X14 SHEET OF PAPER.

Below is an example from another school- part of the rules of the contest is to document the process so make sure to take photographs along the way as you work on designs!

Studio Art: Art History Extra Credit

January's Studio Art extra credit is based on the art history unit we just completed.  You will recieve Extra Credit for watching any of the 3 films available streaming online this month based on artists we learned about: (Banksy) Exit to the Gift Shop, (Frida Kahlo) Frida, (jean Micheal Basquiat) Basquiat.



To get full credit the film review should be 250 words and not reiterate basic information such as cast and plot, it should instead focus on your opinion on the film based on your knowledge of the artist and what we've learned.  To give you a better idea of the expectation you can read this example film review I wrote for the Short & Sweet NYC blog for the art bio film Finding Vivian Maier.

Studio Art: Sketchnotes

Today we will look at some way to use the arts to benefit your learning in other subjects and we'll begin by looking at using sketchnotes.  Here are the sketchnotes I created to teach a workshop on integrating the arts for educators.

The sketchnote animation example from Dan Pink's TED talk on Drive below illustrates how helpful the process can be in creating a deeper understanding of the material.

Digital Media: Designing and 3D Printing Chess Pieces

In Digital Media our first 3D Prints will be original designs for a chess set with each student creating and printing a different piece to create a full set.  Above are some of the pieces from last year, not all of them were entirely successful so we will discuss the different elements you must consider as well as looking at some creative chess set designs from the past like the famous example below from artist Man Ray.

Photography: The Studio Portrait Series

Today in Photography we are completing the Studio Portrait Series with a class critique.  Over the course of 2 1/2 weeks we learning the fundamentals of how to use the SLR camera, how to photograph people in the studio setting including using different studio and natural lighting, how to edit portraits professionally using Adobe Photoshop, and how to create our own filters to add unique, signature elements to our images.  By today, each student should have digitally submitted 3 images that they created and edited along with an additional image from a Smart phone with a grunge filter they created.  We will review all the images as a class and discuss the results and what was learned together.  Above is a great example of 3 different grunge filter portraits from class by Emily, Kelly, and Andrew.  The finished grunge portrait is due today at the end of class.

Studio Art: Art History Review

In Studio Art we will use our Art History Review quizlet page to review some of the important facts about the artists we learned about in class to prepare for the second part of the assessment, the short answer quiz which is on Friday.  We'll look at the major artists and what's important to remember about each of them.

AP Art: Extra Credit

The final AP Art Extra Credit assignment for the quarter is to enter a work into the Saatchi gallery schools prize.

The Saatchi Gallery Art Prize for Schools is open to secondary schools from around the world. Schools can submit artwork from students under 18.

Schools can enter as many art works as they wish. There is no prescribed theme for works entered, nor is there a restriction on media used- sculpture, painting, installation, photography, video and mixed media artworks are all eligible and welcome.

The deadline for entries is January 31st 2017.

Happy New Year- Welcome to 2017

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Happy New Year and welcome to 2017!  Today we will begin with a favorite project called #OneWord in which we choose a word that will be our focus for the new year much like a simplified resolution.  the idea comes from Smithtown East alumni and best-selling author Jon Gordon who you can watch outline the concept below.  the example above are from doing this project one year ago in class.

Also this marks the 10th year of this classroom blog Artroom 161 and seeing that I was just moved out of artroom 161 it seems like a fitting time to end it and start something new.  I'll be starting a new blog soon and retiring this one at the end of the school year.  We've come a long way in the past 10 years, we'll be looking back on some of the highlights before it ends!