Articles by artandsoul

Graphite and Grid Drawing…awesome!!

Art II Art Gallery
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Art II Drawing students have been studying value and basic shading techniques. We did a collaborative whole-class artwork that really turned out beautifully–and was a good teaching tool to show how important the element of value is to successful artwork.

Each student was given a 1″x1″ square cut from a black and white copy of a photo. They were instructed to enlarge it onto a 6″x6″ square, paying careful attention to value and proportions. When everyone was finished, we glued the results together, and crossed our fingers! —one thing I found helped was laying out the pieces, letting everyone look at the “big picture,” and then letting them add or subtract value, etc. to enhance the drawing.

The fun part was that no one got to see the photo they were working from until we finished, so the result was a lovely surprise! Enjoy! 

Cemetery Angel

 

Egyptian Period Portraits

Art History, Art I Art Gallery, Portraits
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My Art I students recently studied Egyptian art and hieroglyphics, and we created a portrait in the style of traditional Egyptian art while reviewing basic elements like line, shape, and form.

Students studied Egyptian portraiture, practiced drawing facial profiles, then created a portrait. They were required to add a headdress and pectoral decoration like that worn by “New Kingdom” Egyptians. These were then bordered in hieroglyphics which had to depict the student’s first name above the portrait, last name below, and could be hieroglyphs or ideograms of their choice on the sides.

We discussed the Egyptians’ limited use of color, and how they used very pure, colorful pigments such as red, “Egyptian” blue, green, yellow, black, and white, as well as gold and silver. After using colored pencils to add color, students accented their artworks with gold metallic paint.

The results were lovely!! 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Student Portfolios with “Creative” Names

Creative Name Portfolios
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Portfolios are one of our first projects every year, and this year the assignment called for an extra dose of creativity. After brainstorming activities, objects, ideas, etc. that represented them, students came up with an idea for the letters of their name that involved using something other than the actual “letters” of their name. Although some names might be a bit difficult to decipher, their creativity was spectacular! I included a sampling below….enjoy 🙂

 

In the art room

Art II Art Gallery, Painting, the Art Room
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This is a lovely piece Jessica Vincent did on an approximate 8 ft. panel the year before she graduated (2011).
Ashley Smith painted this delightful celestial scene on a large wooden sign before she graduated this past May (2012).
I had a tri-panel screen that I needed to liven up; Ashley Barrios painted this cute scene from Nightmare Before Christmas!

Pinwheels for peace

Art I Art Gallery, Art II Art Gallery
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Yesterday being “International Peace Day,” as it were, we, along with some of the other art classes in our district, made pinwheels for an installation in front of the Fly Arts Center here in town. Who doesn’t love a pinwheel? The templates were available on the organization’s website. Enjoy the pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

By Day and By Night illustration

Ms. Cartwright's Art
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2012 illustration by Santha Cartwright — “By Day and By Night”

I sat down with my Drawing class last year during sketchbook time and sketched too; I wanted to sort of set the tone. I think the sun came first. This year I started laying in color and this illustration is the result…it’s the first finished piece I’ve completed in years, really, since life is so busy. It was so incredibly cathartic and enjoyable just working on it. It’s reminiscent of Psalm 121, one of my favorites, so I included the first two lines. I didn’t include, but wanted to, “The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.” So poetic, and true.

Picassohead

Artists, Games
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I’ve added this Picassohead link to the Fun Stuff page. It’s great fun; there’s also a cool gallery of picassoheads with creative and maybe not so creative names by other people. Anyhoo, something else to fritter away the one valuable thing we have…right? time. Of course, too, being creative is never wasted. :D.

Mona Lisa…still smiling

Artists
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Poor Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci brought her to life about 507 years ago, and she will not be left alone. She is the most viewed painting, the most talked about, the most parodied. Here are a few spin-offs that I liked…