Day Four and Five

These are combined because I left my small notebook at school Friday.

Friday was another Drawing I class, so the previous post details this semester test procedure. I graded tests again. Then it was a prep period. The other intern and I used this time for our "intern project". We built flat storage shelves out of two large drafting tables. We placed one table top-down on the other and added shelves.

Because we did not finish this Friday, we used the end on today, Tuesday to finish.

Monday was a teacher recording day, so students and interns were out. We found out today that the main school computer dropped all students from the system (or something along those lines) and the teachers freaked out a little.

We finally got a taste of a regular school day. Today we had oil painting, drawing I, AP Art History and a prep period (during which we finished the table). I was glad to get the chance to see the lessons introduced.

Oil painting is an overview-type class. It provides ways of approaching art making. Their last project was glaze painting of self-portraits. This next project is going to be of a more contemporary nature. It is an advanced class, and the students get to choose one of three options for the next painting.

Option One: Play with surfaces
Work on an altered surface. Build layers. Use a linear or calligraphic line subject. (e.g. texturing with a toothpick, wipe-out, collaging with fabric, texturing with dust, sand, sawdust, or powdered pigment) Combine techniques. The classroom book, Arteffects by Jean Drysdall Green gives ideas and

Option Two: Paint on an unusual surface
Make sure what you are painting on the object make sense/ has a relationship to the object. All students made a list of twenty things they have at home that could be brought back and painted on- taking an ordinary object and making it extraordinary.

Option Three: Create from your portrait (or another painting?) a 'shrine' or environment in 3-D by adding things around it.

I like that the drawing I class is reiterating techniques, like perspective (although for some students it is the first time they learn it), while incorporating meaningful content and historical context.

The intro was about Salvador Dali. Several of his works were shown and his use of one-point perspective was discussed. Because this is a drawing one class, MT wanted to asses their current understanding. They were instructed to draw a horizon line, vanishing point, and three boxes (transparent cubes) above and three boxes below the horizon. The second part of this pre-test was to turn two of the boxes into objects that exhibited the effect of perspective. On the back of this drawing they followed MT as she step-by-step instructed them in the creation of a room-like image. This was turned in at the end of class.

Friday MT will be out and the students will answer worksheets with questions about Dali after reading an article about him in "Salvador Dali: working with the imagination" from Art&Man magazine published by Scholastic.

AP Art History continued with making the flash cards for the AP exam started as their final exam.