Saturday, September 8, 2012

Comments, anyone?

Good morning children!  I just spent a lovely half an hour or so looking at your sites and posting comments (when I could) and sending comments (when I could) to each of you.  I'm not certain how often you are visiting this site but I need to have you make it a habit at least a few times a week.  I saw one comment from one of you to another but that was all.  I saw one concentration statement and know I'll see the rest by the 15th.  I am seeing some nice work but now I need to have you take a SERIOUS look at what you have up and ask yourself the most important question:  Is it portfolio ready?  If not, alter, re-work, re-think, remove and put up a piece that is.

The sketchbook you are all maintaining - that hasn't changed and the "Masterwork" chapters should be evident.  I would like to have you create, if you haven't already, a link to that sketchbook and I would like to see the work you're doing on your concentration pieces.  You can keep this as private as you like with only me seeing the link (I know you all know how to hide what you don't want the world to see!).

I also want to see/hear comments from ALL of you - I need to know you're out there working and listening.

This is going to be a great year.
...overdone, I know but relevant to all of us...

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Keep looking:

Jenny Morgan portraits
Work to look at - Jenny Morgan.  While the eyes are definitely arresting and grab hold, not letting go (isn't that what art is supposed to do?), the treatment of the hands is amazing.  What about YOUR work grabs the viewer and doesn't let go?

The deadline for posting Breadth #1 and creating your AP blog is now one day late.  
Get on it, please.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Think.

Sometimes the questions are complicated 
and the answers are simple.
Aluminum plate monoprints on Rivas BFK by Eben Goff

Thursday, August 30, 2012

What to post on your student site:

Thank you to the few of you who have created accounts and have actually posted on your sites.  I'm beginning to wonder why I didn't think of doing this a LONG time ago!  What a great way to see what you think (ha, if you thought I couldn't get in your brain, now you are SADLY mistaken!...).  Here's what I need to have you do with the blogs:

     1.  Post your work BY THE DEADLINES and include the title, size, medium, date, and a
          REFLECTION about the piece.
     2.  Tell me (us) if it is concentration or breadth.
     3.  Include research if you want to - you will be posting your masterwork sketchbook pages    
          eventually.
     4.  Do not use your site as another social media location.  This is for me, for you, and for the class.
          Period.  It may be hard to not put up everything you're interested in, but it makes the task of
          figuring out what IS your portfolio and WHAT IS NOT much more difficult.
     5.  Try to photograph your work as if it is the final piece you are submitting to AP College Board.
     6.  Post your comments to the other student sites and copy me, please, if you need to.

Have fun!

Monday, August 20, 2012

Just a reminder - concentration ideas you may have forgotten to think about...


  • Car part ads
  • Portraits detailing emotions
  • Portraits detailing odd body positions
  • Extreme abstract close ups
  • Extreme abstract close ups of nature
  • Normal things using alternate colors
  • What people throw away
  • Family heirlooms
  • Variations of one thing
  • Seasons
  • Recreations of famous art pieces
  • Close ups of person - abstracted
  • Designing shoes/shoe close ups
  • Portraits of things broken or ruined
  • Opposites (ie: something hot as cold)
  • Textures
  • Animals.insects in environment
  • Close ups of sports equipment
  • Close ups of art supplies
  • Distortion
  • Optical illusions
  • Where has it been? (ie: the dollar)
  • Items upside down or backwards
  • Items missing something vital
  • Images inspired by songs
  • Cause and effect
  • War and its effect
  • Landscapes: day and night
  • Perspective
  • Significant buildings
  • Accessories
  • Sunglasses and faces
  • Scenes from dreams
  • Scenes from books
  • Self portraits with traits exaggerated
  • Illustrate a story
  • Line drawings of objects
  • What will the future be?
  • Past and present
  • Modern and historic
  • Odd, interesting people
  • A day in the life of...
  • One object 12 different views
  • Technology
  • Different cultures
  • The Heavens (planets, stars, etc.)
  • Aerial views
  • Stages of growing up
  • Things whole, broken up
  • Surrealism paintings
  • Real to life with surreal background
  • Hands doing things - different media
  • 12 different parts of a face, together creating a whole face again
  • People who are angry (happy, sad)
  • Buildings
  • City scenes
  • People in motion
  • Innocence
  • Nature scenes
  • One person, portrait young to old
  • Areas of concern in America
  • Old photographs
  • Polaroids
  • The act of protest
  • Shape (altering with diet/weights)
  • Triumph
  • Using trash to create
  • Teenage life
  • Monochromatic (life?)
  • The game of life
  • Childhood mementos
  • Family vacations
  • Family members
  • A friend’s different moods
  • First day of school pictures
  • Elderly
  • Playgrounds
  • Door handles
  • Bathrooms
  • Scenes from a music video
  • Beach scenes
  • Undersides of desks and chairs
  • Insides of things
  • Jewelry
  • Zippers
  • Metamorphosis
  • Close ups of favorite foods
  • Sweat
  • Beauty of hands - how they are used
  • Generations
  • Things we desire
  • Love/friendship
  • Vulnerability
  • Change
  • Hope
  • Appropriation
  • Helping others
  • Picking up after hard times
  • Newspaper headlines
  • Natural disasters
  • Human emotion
  • Leaving things behind
  • Adventures
  • Nonconformity/individuality
  • Conformity 
  • Sameness
  • Comfort zones
  • War and peace
  • Diversity
  • Beauty in simplicity
  • Where have you been?
  • Forever young
  • Evolution of objects
  • Light
  • Sound
  • Motion
  • Abandoned buildings
  • The smallest parts of a whole
  • Media impact
  • Parts of the body to represent different emotions
  • Necessary objects
  • Communication tools
  • Different scenes through broken glass
  • Famous speeches (...to be or not to be...)
  • Photographs telling part of a story
  • Windows/mirrors
  • Fire
  • Water
  • Earth
  • Wind
  • Comic strip
  • Parties
  • Skeletal structure
  • Wood
  • Walking on the ceiling
  • Through the eyes of animals
  • Life as a napkin
  • Life as a paperclip 
  • Life as a ____________
  • No skin, just the inside
  • Negatives
  • Pure line
  • Overconfidence
  • Fashion designs
  • Illustrate a book
  • Night scenes
  • Opposites
  • Same place, different time
  • Decades
  • Fruits inside and out
  • Produce
  • Sleeping people
  • Patterns
  • What is art to you?
  • School life
  • Your surroundings
  • Refuge
  • Current issues
  • Death
  • Abstraction of every day life
  • Different rooms - what makes them interesting
  • Hats
  • Fear
  • Poverty
  • Interiors and Exteriors
  • The figure in space
  • Abandoned houses
  • Deterioration - the body, a structure
  • Morning rituals
  • Shadows - extreme
  • Reflections in surfaces
  • Interpretations of one object
  • Creating a drawing for every line of a song or poem
  • Decaying objects
  • Illumination with candle light
  • Drawings/paintings in different artistic styles
  • Daily Routines
  • People and their pets
  • Jobs
  • Horses
  • Trash versus treasure - who decides?
  • Bedrooms
  • What’s in your closet?
  • Child labor
  • Poster events (rodeos, carnivals, etc.)
  • Homelessness
  • Unfinished things
  • Assemblages
  • Boxes
  • Boxes as a metaphor
  • Stages of Life
  • Paths
  • Unusual environments
  • Colors as influences
  • Seeing color where others don’t
  • Chairs
  • Art and text
  • Illustrate Shakespeare
  • Illustrate a famous historical event - (JFK assassination, Harvey Milk and SF gay rallies)
  • Body language
  • Drawings of reflective materials
  • Dolls
  • Drawing over time (one setting adding a new element every day)
  • Drawing in each color scheme (warm, cool, analogous, etc.)
  • Pop Art analyzed personally
  • Organic materials used non-organically (clothing? transportation?)
  • Changing landscape (Monet)
  • Emotions through abstraction
  • Temporary art - graffiti, sand on sidewalk, dust on car windows)
  • Toast
  • Clouds
  • Light fixtures
  • 7 Deadly Sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride)
  • Kitchen objects
  • Focus on Vermeer (friends set up in famous positions)
  • Fauvist style landscapes of favorite places
  • Human influences on environment
  • Close up of machines
  • Emulating artists’ styles
  • Braids
  • Interior of moving things
  • Unusual landscape alteration
  • Portraits with your mother
  • Portraits with your art
  • 27 dresses
  • Sunday, August 19, 2012

    Concentration - "moving things".
    I have never spent so much time looking - REALLY LOOKING - at art than I have this summer.  It used to feel like I was cheating, looking at instead of doing art, but I have come to realize that so much of my inspiration in the studio comes from bits and pieces I have gathered in my visual brain.  I'm excited about the year and can't wait to see what you all have produced this summer and the wonderful ideas you have come up with.

    See you in a week!