Media Art: The Oscars

This Sunday is the Academy Awards Show and today we'll be taking a look at some of the nominated films that you might not have seen or heard of such as some of my favorites shown above: Philomena, Nebraska, & Her along with clips from some of the films nominated for best documentary such as: Cutie and the Boxer, The Act of Killing, & The Square.  You may want to watch some of these films on Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, or Google Play before the show so here's a link to WNYC showing which films are available where instantly.

AP Senior Artshow 1: Sabrina

 This week we held our first AP Senior Artshow of 2014 and Sabrina started us off in style with an eclectic and intricate arrange show including her fashion designs, drawings, prints, sculptures, and paints complete with electric candle lighting and corrugated birds! 

February 26- Sabrina

March 12- Gabby & Harry

March 19- Michelle

March 26- Zachary

April 2- Andrew & Juliana

April 9 - Lisa & Erica

It was a fabulous beginning and above is the complete schedule for upperclassmen shows this year which will be followed by group shows of undergraduates and an alumni show later in the school year.

Studio Art: Art History Test

Today we will have our test on the sculptors and designers we studied in studio art.  It's a straight-forward matching test so look at your notes about what the different artists work looks like to be prepared.  I choose artists like Saul Bass who created the work shown above who are influential and distinct so they wont be confused with others.

Media Arts: Our global PSA Project

We held our second Global Nomads Group video-conference with the G/9-4 school in Islamabad, Pakistan in Media Arts class yesterday and had another interesting global conversation.  In addition to discussing our collaborative community project the topics ranged from stereotypes to cars to war to media and some of the biggest surprises included learning about some of the things we take for granted such as mascots, You Tube, and lockers.  Our next video-conference in early April when we'll show our work on our global community PSA project which we will begin brainstorming today.

Media Arts: Videoconference #2 with Pakistan

This morning in Media Arts class we will have our second Global Nomads Group video-conference with the G/9-4 school in Islamabad, Pakistan.  During this conference we will discuss our upcoming collaborative community project, our personal and global history work, and the short videos that we created this week about where we live (ours is posted above).

Studio Art: Cutie and the Boxer

Today we'll take a look Cutie and the Boxer, one of the 2014 Oscar nominated films for best documentary, and the artists it focuses on: Shinohara and his wife Noriko aka 'Cutie'.  We will continue reviewing the sculptors and designers starting tomorrow with a test on Thursday that includes Shinohara.

Shanti Peace Poster Contest

Congratulations to Mr. Needles AP Studio Art students Lisa Sacco and Andrew Chang who's artwork was selected to be included in the 2014 Shanti Fund calendar.  Students from across Long Island created images to celebrate the idea of peace in honor of Gandhi's birthday and the Shanti Fund chose 12 of the best for the calendar which is distributed throughout New York.

Happy Valentines!

Happy Valentines Day everyone!  Today we have an abbreviated schedule due to the 2 hour delay so most c lasses will be taking a quiz or turning in work and going over what we'll be doing when we return from next week's break.

AP Art: Japan Society Visit

Today we are welcoming guests from the Japan Society education department into classes in preparation for our upcoming Japanese student visitors in March.  Above is a video from JS's Waku Waku series reminding us how to say 'konnichi wa'!

Media Art: Frank and Ollie's Twelve Basic Principles of Animation.

Today we'll take a closer look at each at two of Disney's Nine Old Men, the team of Frank and Ollie along with their Twelve Basic Principles of Animation.  We'll also be collecting the 5 images for our upcoming look at the town we live in film.  Due to tomorrow's 10th grade Holocaust assemble the quiz will be moved to Thursday!

Media Art: Animation Basics

In Media Art this week we are going to go over the basic terms and principles of Animation including terms like: persistence of vision, stop-motion, storyboards, animatics, table reads, dailies, frames per second, pencil tests, CGI, cells, extremes, in-betweens, key frames, foley, and the Twelve Basic Principles of Animation.  We'll be looking at how animated works like Futurama and Toy Story are made and there will be a short quiz on Wednesday on the terms.

We are also going to work on out ongoing collaboration with Pakistan with out 5 photos of Smithtown due tomorrow, Tuesday 2/11

Extra Credit: ANTI-BULLYING Poster

This month's extra credit assignment is to create an ANTI-BULLYING poster for the Suffolk CountyYouth Bureau in any media.  Below are the basic rules and to get the credit posters need to be submitted to Mr.Needles by Friday
February 14 and mailed by April 18, 2014

To be eligible, middle school and high school aged youth must submit an 8 ½” x 11” poster, containing original content, reflecting, in words and/or images, the child’s perception of cyberbullying and its impact.

The poster must be postmarked no later than April 18, 2014, and must include, on the back thereof, the name of the child artist, as well as the name and address of the school or youth bureau with which the child is affiliated. Poster submissions must be sent to:  Roderick A. Pearson, Executive Director, Suffolk CountyYouth Bureau, 100 Veterans Memorial Hwy. P.O Box 6100 Hauppauge, NY 11788.

The Anti-Bullying Campaign Committee will select 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners from the middle and high school age categories. Winners will be notified by Friday, May 16, 2014, and will receive their award at a ceremony to be held on May 30, 2014.  In addition, winning posters will be displayed in the lobby of the County Executive’s office at H. Lee Denison Building during the month of October, 2014, which is Bully Prevention month.

Studio Art- Artist Research Project II

To begin the second semester we will be researching artists who work in three dimensional art, sculpture, printmaking, and graphic design which are the major units we'll be covering.  Below is the master list of artists we'll be covering and just as we did last semester we'll have a test on them after the presentations.  Check the assignment drive to see which artist you've been assigned and complete a PowerPoint with 10 full slide images, 10 relevant facts, and a title page with the artists name, birth (and death) and your name and period by Friday 2/7.

Studio Art Semester II Artist Research Project

1. Alberto Giacometti
2. Albrecht Dürer
3. Alexander Calder
4. Andy Goldsworthy
5. Auguste Rodin
6. Bradbury Thompson Bradbury Thompson
7. Chip Kidd
8. Christo
9. Claes Oldenburg
10. Constantin Brancusi
11. Dan Flavin
12. David Carson
13. David Smith
14. Donatello
15. FAILE
16. Gian Lorenzo Bernini
17. Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
18. Isamu Noguchi
19. Louise Bourgeois
20. Louise Nevelson
21. Marcel Duchamp
22. Massimo Vignelli
23. Michael Bierut
24. Milton Glaser
25. Paul Rand Ruth Ansel
26. Richard Serra
27. Robert Indiana
28. Saul Bass
29. Stefan Sagmeister
30. Ushio Shinohara

Media Arts: Global Nomads Project

Today was the first day of the new semester of Media Arts class and we jumped right in with our first project in which we work with Global Nomads Group to collaboratively work on the Global Citizens in Action along with a class in Islamabad, Pakistan. 

This morning we held our first videoconference with our Pakistani partner school and were able to ask and answer a few questions and learn a bit about each other.  This week we will follow-up with 3 assignments that will be part of our next videoconference later in February.