Extra Credit: MSG Varsity 10 Photo Set

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.

AP Art: Senior Art Show 5 Jenna

 

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!

AP Art: Online submissions

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.

Studio Art: Poet's portraits in words

In Studio Art class we created portraits of notable poets in words for National Poetry Month and here are a few great examples by Victoria, Maria, and Nick of Daniel Hoffman, Ezra Pound, and William Shakespeare.

Media Art: Children's Films

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.

Media Art: Local Film featuring James Franco and Jonah Hill

Much love to Port Jefferson Long Island for waiting all day to see me on set of True Story twitter.com/JonahHill/stat…
— Jonah Hill (@JonahHill) April 18, 2013

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.

Photography: Studio Portraits

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.

Extra Credit: Watch and Critique Chasing Ice

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.

Studio Art: Digital typography

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
.

Photography: The Digital Rayograph

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.

Mr.Needles Sick Day

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!”

Studio Art: Typographic Design

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.

Photography: Combining images for narrative effect

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.

AP Art: Senior Shows - Megan

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!

 

 

Studio Art: Words as Art

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.

AP Art: 2013 Long Island's Best Show

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.

AP Art: The 2013 Congressional Art Show

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.

Studio Art: Graphic Design and Typography

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.”

AP Art: Senior Shows- Devon

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.

 

Guest Artist: Dominique Maciejka

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.

Studio Art: Matisse's cutouts and the Chapel of the Rosary

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.

AP Art: Shanti Poster Contest

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 7^th annual Shanti calendar.

AP Art: Photo Forum Photography Contest

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.

AP Art: 2013 Long Island's Best

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.