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!