Charcoal - man that is some messy stuff

I gave the advanced kids a shot at charcoal and some loved it, some hated it, I love the results. Check em out below.

Pinstriping 101

Pinstriping is an art form that was created by an American artist named Von Dutch. It is loosely based on symmetry using only lines and is derived from coach lines which were used to decorate stage coaches and early automobiles. Von Dutch took this to a new level with his wild symmetrical designs that he painted on the custom cars and motorcycles of the 1950's. Today it is a world wide art form but is dwindling due to the ease of vinyl graphics. I have partnered with 1shot paint company to teach and bring this art form into the high school setting. Here are some shots of the students trying this style of painting. #1shot, #pinstriping, #oneshot.

This DUDE loved it so much he ran to his friends to tell them about it before they got to class (they are in different blocks). We don't have any finished art yet but it will be coming soon....

Drawing and Painting has come a long way.

These guys and girls are craving and devouring everything I can give them in regards to drawing and painting. They are experiencing new things and proving they have some awesome art ability. We have studied three things recently. High Contrast, Colored pencil and Micrography. Below is a sampling of each with a brief description.

Students learned how to use colored pencils correctly to layer the colors suggesting realism and focusing on all the awesome detail in the world around us, shadows, highlights, reflections, glare, etc.

We also studied Micrography which is another way of shading using words. Some students used this to tell a story and I have to say some of them got real emotional. We even had a few people cry during our critique.

                                      

Then finally we worked with high contrast. Students had to convert an image into only black and white while keeping it readable. Meaning they could not have any shading in there art, this proves to be very difficult to master. They used India ink and dip pens to finish their paintings.

What a time the first nine weeks has been!

My first nine weeks as the Art teacher at heard County High is complete and I have to say that I am glad I made the change. This is an awesome school system filled with great students, teachers and administrators. The support we get is unbelievable. I have had some great art work come out of room 135 this 9 weeks also. Below is a sampling with a brief description under each section.

Art 1 Landscapes using shading techniques and graphite. Student explored the different ways they could add value to a drawing and made these wonderful drawings based on images found in some old oil painting books.

This one is from the schools many stairwells.

Here are some shading examples, the students used hatching, scumbling and stippling to see how different the same image could look with the different shading styles.

The same group of students then added India ink to their list of mediums and created cities studying where the shadows and highlights would be on the buildings while learning how to manipulate ink with only water, paint brushes and old fashioned dip pens.