Welcome to Art Room 161

This blog was created as an extension of the dialogue that began in our classroom and the purpose is to share creative ideas, images, and critiscm. All posts should be appropriate for the high school classroom and critiscm should be helpful and positive.

Friday, February 28, 2014

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.



Thursday, February 27, 2014

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.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

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.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

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).

Monday, February 24, 2014

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.

Friday, February 14, 2014

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.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

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'!

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

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!

Monday, February 10, 2014

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

Friday, February 7, 2014

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.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

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

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

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.


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