I know, I know, it's October, but September is a busy month for teachers, especially this one. I have been very busy adjusting for the exciting new changes that came with this year. To begin with, we have two new teachers in our upper school visual art department. That makes four of us. We have... Continue Reading →
What drives me crazy every year is the conflict between my compulsion to document and the impossible task of doing so. It is not feasible for me to record, and keep track of, every single wonderful thing that happens at my wonderful school. But I try. To fill in some of the gaps here is a quick... Continue Reading →
Now that our school year has come to a close, I finally have time to brag a bit about the amazing success of my classes final exam. Each student was given the task of designing their own projects for themselves, setting goals, and sketching out a plan for action. They were asked to draw from... Continue Reading →
In Foundations of Studio Art we have started our portrait studies in collage. The main objective behind this project is to teach my students the importance of value in creating depth, basic proportions of the human face, and creating thoughtful artwork from observation. The idea was that this would make their future painting endeavors easier. I... Continue Reading →
We finally finished our beautiful ceramic pieces. The glaze firing went off without a hitch except that the delay I had programmed into the kiln seemed to not have worked? It fired hours before I expected it to, but luckily this did not affect the glazing, it simply meant I did not know to check... Continue Reading →
So our second to last structured assignment this year is vessel construction in ceramics. As promised, I am giving my students a taste of each material they could potentially sign up to focus on next year. This is important because for a rising sophomore, which my girls are soon to be, Stone Ridge offers Media... Continue Reading →
Here are some of the final results of what felt like months of hard work. It was, in fact, only a few weeks, but WHOA did my amazing, talented, and persistent students make some great stuff! Now our entire school community, and the attendees at last weeks TEDx event (more on that coming soon...) can see... Continue Reading →
What would you do if you were asked to make something 3D and amazing using at least 100 pieces of recycled materials? My students were asked this question, and as usual they blew me away with their amazing ideas. As part of our bi-weekly social action program the students have learned about what it means to be... Continue Reading →
This past month my fantastic students focused on composition in photography. This was a basic introduction to using an SLR digital camera, importing photos, and correcting/altering photos on Adobe Photoshop. We started out with our cell phones as a warm up, because lets be honest, they really are just small computers with cameras attached. And... Continue Reading →
This month we dedicated our time to focusing on the structure of the human figure. We looked first at scale, using our friendly wooden models, and then moved into gesture, with proportion still fresh in our minds. We drew from observations and everyone in the class took a turn posing. It was just the right... Continue Reading →
