Concept studio is a class where the students learn about conceptual art and use concepts as a basis for art-making. I tell the students that the concept in this class is more important than the image that communicates it because I want them emphasizing the idea over the skill shown in the execution of their work. Formal art focuses on the skill and product while conceptual art is focused on the idea or concept over the skill or product. Our first project focused on the concept of time. We viewed and discussed artwork related to the concept of time . Many of the students realized how almost everything in life can somehow relate to time because it is a part of all existence. I gave the students a variety of examples and helped them build up their ideas before they executed them. The students created a wide variety of art with various ideas related to time. Here are some of their pieces below.
The high school students have been working on a variety of projects. Open studio is a self-directed course that allows students to explore and experiment with different media. The first half of the semester the students participated in demos so that they had a base knowledge on the materials that they could work with. The second half of the semester the students have been using what they learned first semester to do some bigger projects. This semester they have also been researching a chosen artist to present on to the rest of the class. We will finish the school year by writing artist statements and participating in the Stargate Art Show.
In 2-D art the middle school students recently learned about drawing with value. Value is also known as shading, and it is one of the main ways that artists create the illusion of depth in their 2-dimensional work. The students practiced creating value on sketch paper by creating a value scale and by drawing a sphere with a shadow. I then challenged the students to create a collaborative grid drawing using value. I introduced grid drawing to them and explained how a collaborative grid drawing works. The students voted to choose the images for their grid drawings. The two images they voted for are pictured below. Each student got one square of the drawing and was challenged to recreate it as accurately as possible while using what they learned about value. I gave them the option to do it all in pencil or to choose the media that they wanted to work with. They voted to choose the media. There was a wide variety of media used such as watercolor, chalk pastel, oil pastel, colored pencil, charcoal, and drawing pencil. After they finished and we put all of the pieces together we talked about went well, what we could have improved on, and how we would do it differently if we were to do it again. Our next project has to do with identity and we are studying various unique ways to create a self-portrait.
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