School's Out

Today is the last day of school so I thought I would end by sharing some of the final watercolor assignment in painting class as a tree is symbolic for life and growth among other things.  Above are three paintings by Taylor,  Sabrina, and Brenna from the art courtyard outside my classroom.

Congratulations to all the seniors who graduated yesterday and best of luck in the future and to all my students I remind you to go forward with an open mind and remember that "everyday in another opportunity to be creative"!

Starting off with a SCAD Summer

Next week I'll be heading down to Savannah, GA to participate in some of the SCAD Summer art workshops along with some of my students.  I'm looking forward to spending the week being creative with drawing classes outdoors, children's book illustration, storyboarding, and figure drawing among others. The campus is pretty amazing, here are a few photos from my trip there last year.

Advanced Film: "Throw It Back" trailer

Here's the completed trailer for the short film Throw It Back which stars and was produced by Mr. Needles, the Advanced Film class, and the Media Art Honor Society as well as cameos by Smithtown East Staff like Mr. Lynch and some of the security team.  Look out for the full film which will be out this summer and will be submitted into a few local film festivals!

Longhouse Reserve Student Annual V Awards

Congratulations to AP Art student Kyle Stroveglia for winning first place in the drawing category at this year's Longhouse Reserve Student Annual.  His piece is below, a marker drawing of Fly's Eye Dome designed by Buckminster Fuller and he received his award at the Longhouse this week in a ceremony which featured Longhouse founder Jack Lenor Larsen, a internationally known textile designer and art collector, and Selena Rothwell, the Education Committee Chair.  Kyle's a senior and will soon be heading off to Boston for college so it's a great way to go out!

Kyle's winning piece: "Fly's Eye Dome"

Longhouse founder Jack Lenor Larsen

Kyle receiving his award from Selena Rothwell

Art Room 161 was Fascination Award nominated for 2012's Most Fascinating Art Teacher blog

I found out today that Art Room 161 was nominated for a Fascination Award as 2012's Most Fascinating Art Teacher blog!  While I have never heard of the Fascination Awards it's always nice to be nominated for an award that includes the term "most fascinating" so thanks to all the parents, teachers, and especially students who use the blog and interact daily!

Japan Society: Japanese Art Deco

I stopped by The Japan Society to check out their show on Japanese Art Deco before it closed and found the work pretty fascinating! There was a variety of media ranging from textiles to posters to housewares to cigarette packages which merged the deco design with Japanese style making for some pretty interesting results. After studying both Art Deco and Japanese culture in AP Art & Painting it's definitely something worth checking out, at least on the web!

Congratulations AP Art class of 2011-2012

Today is the last day of classes so I just wanted to say congratulations to this year's Smithtown East AP Art class and thanks to all of you who put in the time and worked so hard!  Remember to stay creative and stay in touch! Best of luck in the future!

Photography: Light Painting

In photography class our third experimental technique is long exposure light painting using iPhones and a DSLR camera.  This is a group assignment but each student must submit their own image by Thursday, here are some of my favorites so far from Brianna, Mckenna, and Nicole above and w Kim and Jenna below.

RIP Ray Bradbury

Science-fiction legend Ray Bradbury passed away earlier today at the age of 91 and here's a short video of the author best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 speaking about himself and where his creativity and interest in books came from.  Here'a a link to his obituary in the L.A. Times

Photography: Double Exposures

 In photography we are working on some experimental, creative techniques this week and we will begin by creating double and triple exposures.  You can intentionally expose images more than once in the camera or afterwards using Photoshop.  When you're making multiple exposures you should also think about which images you are combining and you can make the final piece thematic, random and comedic, or create a photo illustration which makes a more specific point.  Here are three great examples from Jenna (above)< Kim (below), and Melanie (bottom), terrific work!

Film History: 1990's

As we look at the recent history of film and television in the 1990's it's a bit easier to contextualize the social and historical factors around films.  In television we talked about the major series such as: Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Friends, and we watched the "Norm and Cliff's Excellent Adventure" episode of Cheers which came to an end in 1993.  The film are watching is one of my favorites,  Lasse Hallström's 1993 drama What's Eating Gilbert Grape starring  Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis, and Leonardo DiCaprio.  Below are the three questions to answer on your reaction paper which is due on Wednesday:

The town of Endora is, in a sense, a major character in the film and there are a few distinct parts of the town that seem to serve an important symbolic purpose such as the water tower, the grocery stores, and even the town's name itself.  Discuss why and how these elements work in the film and what their symbolic meanings are.

The cast of the film is pretty amazing from the stars like Depp & DiCaprio to the supporting actors like John C. Reilly & Crispin Glover so it's not a surprise that the performances are terrific too but putting the major characters aside choose three supporting actors and talk about what their purpose in the film is, what do they represent? If you removed them what would be lost?

Finally, what is the theme or moral of the film, what's it trying to say?  Give evidence from the film to support your ideas

AP Art 2012-2013 Class Meeting

There will be a short class meeting for students enrolled in AP Art next year to discuss the summer assignments, summer course options and contests, and to answer any questions that arise.  Above is an example from Meagan of her "self portrait without a face" assignment which is listed below on the blog,  See you all Wednesday!

Photography: Grunge Filters

This week in class we are learning how to create our own photo filters and first we'll be creating grunge filters using images of wrecked type, scratches. grime, grit, and coffee spills along with some advanced Photoshop tools so make sure you take an image that would work well weathered and followed the same steps in the demonstration I did in class in order to create a good set of filters.  The grunge image is due at the beginning of class of Monday but above are three great examples that were turned early by Jenna, Matt, and Sarah, nice work!