DP Art: Sea Shell Study

This school year I have started teaching our IB Diploma Programme Junior Art class here at Gateway. Over the summer, I’ll admit, I was a little nervous about it over the summer. Teaching DP requires lots of skill building (most of the students have never even taken an art course before) plus theory/history/thinking around art. It’s basically a marathon going at a 100meter dash rate. However, after finishing up the first quarter this last week – I am happy to reflect, that it’s going pretty well!

Quarter One was all about getting these students on the same “language” of art. Now, I normally don’t like to focus on teaching an “elements & principles” lesson – however, this was my best shot at getting these students out of the gates quickly.

fractured drawing portraits.

If you’re looking for a creative April Fool’s post, go check out my pal Tim Bogatz’s article this morning on TheArtofEd. I have always been pretty gulible (I like to think its just because at heart I will always be a trusting MidWestern girl) and this one gave me a little heart attack and chuckle this morning before school. However, I just can’t bring myself to be so cruel, so I am just going to share another fun drawing lesson; fractured drawing portraits.

hello 2015!

Sitting here watching my students all grinding away at their drawings fills my heart as we finish up the first week back at school for 2015. Teaching high school, I am fortunate to have my first semester students return back for the second semester. I also gained some previous students who had a spot in their schedules and wanted to be back in the art room. My take over is working, they’re hooked!

Surrealism space.

My high school art class was fantastic. I learned and excelled at technique & it definitely taught me that my place was in the art room. However, one of my biggest struggles as a college art student was creating my own ideas. Crazy I know, but when you’re always told what to draw and how to draw it, that creative element is unfortunately lost. From that experience, I’ve always told myself that when I was given the opportunity to teach advanced level art students that I needed to 1) teach them solid technique & a variety of mediums to apply it too AND 2) The ability to think for themselves and develop their own personal art. That second one can be very scary for students. Even your most talented students will stare at blank paper and beat their brains “I don’t know what to do”. Slowly and gracefully, however, I’m starting to give my adv. drawing students more and more control (freedom?) with each assignment.

value self portraits.

I have been revisiting this project since I began teaching in at the middle school level. This value-focused, pop art inspired style of portraiture is adaptable for both drawing and painting. Most importantly, since I have now taught this similar style of project across mediums and age-levels, I am definitely feeling I am working out all of the kinks and seeing some great works produced by my students.