Katt's AP 2D Studio Art

AP has been a very interesting learning experience. I learned more about myself as an artist and I feel I have improved a lot over the year. Not only in terms of my abilities but also as a person. I still am a perfectionist and a bit of a procrastinator, but I have become more accepting of my mistakes and instead of giving up right away, I have gotten better at trying to solve the problem and incorporate it into the piece. All in all I think AP was a very fun experience and one that taught me a lot and strengthened my friendships with my fellow APers.

My concentration is based on stories. These stories were passed down orally until they were written down after being told and retold for generations. These storytellers would often edit the endings to make them less violent for children. But take Grimm’s fairy tales for example, they didn’t censor themselves; they left the brutal endings as was intended. Not everything has to have a happy ending. I took the child-friendly stories and twisted them back to include the darker themes.

When I was younger I loved to read fairytales and myths. The vivid imagery they brought to mind has continued to inspire my art as I got older. I wanted to explore this passion while taking it in a new direction. I intended to give a darker take on my favorite stories while exploring them through a variety of mediums. Images 2-4 were inspired by watercolor illustrations often found in children’s books. They have a child-like feel to them. As I continued my exploration my lines became harsher and more defined as I explored colored pencil as a medium in images 5-7. Skeletons are also a more prominent symbol from image 7 on. I felt they added a sinister element, contrasting with the rich colors of the acrylic paint. I feel image 8 especially is an exceptional example of this. Several stories are repeated throughout my concentration as I delved into different themes. Image 1 shows Rapunzel turning into her tower from waiting so long, while image 12 shows her having died during the wait. By the end of my investigation I’m pleased with the variety of poses, colors, and mediums I’ve included. I chose each subject matter and composition carefully based on what I intended to convey to the viewer.

AP Studio Art Student Posts Coming Soon!

The AP Studio Art Students have finished their portfolios and all have been submitted to the College Board for review.  Now they are ready to share some of their work with the world. As in years past each student will have an opportunity to post their thoughts, concentration focus, and images to the Artroom 411 Blog over the next two weeks.  Please check back daily to see whats new. Remember the students really appreciate your comments and feedback.  They have worked hard over the past 9 months to develop their portfolios. A little positive feedback can go a long way!

Stress Free Handing in, Organizing, and Grading Digital Images

I know I have mentioned schoology.com as a great secure resource for your paperless artroom in the past. However, I think it warrants mentioning again. This site is awesome! Over the past two years I have found schoology.com to be a life saver for handing in, organizing, and grading digital photography images.  

Here are the basics of schoology albums so you can try it for yourself. 

*Just to be safe I used older albums for the images since the students have graduated and the codes have been disabled.

I create courses for my classes.  

Within each course I create an album for each student within the course.  The course has an access code that allows students to join. Once the students have logged in they find their albums and upload their photographs.  

As the students upload their photography a date appears at the bottom to let me know if it when it was posted. This feature eliminates "But I turned it in on time, really!" 

I have the students write the name of the project in the caption so it shows up with the photo in their album.

I love having access to my schoology.com account from anywhere. I can grade over weekend or in the evenings easily.  The students love the fact that they can hand in their photography outside of the school day too.

And yes...there is an app for that too  

The students can only see the albums from their class.  I have them critique each others work by adding comments. 

 schoology.com has made handing in photos and grading stress free! I could go on and on but my lunch is almost over, so time to go! There are many more great features to this site...a discussion for another day. Checkout schoology.com for yourself.

McKenna B. AP Art

Taking AP Art this year really helped me to grow as an artist. Through the process of creating my portfolio, I learned more about both myself and my art.My medium of choice ended up being watercolors, as I feel they are one of the most expressive mediums to work with. My concentration in AP Art was linked to personal experiences.

COMMENTARY
1.) The central idea of my concentration has been overcoming my internal battle with depression and anxiety. The stark black and white details in my art work represent the depression always lingering in day to day life, despite how small the amount may be. The watercolor represents anxiety. While the bright and beautiful colors represent how the world as a whole tends to see me, the messy patterns of it all depict the turmoil inside; disorganized yet coinciding to create an interesting image.

2.) My concentration has developed into a strong focus from a single painting. I first painted a portrait of myself in simple colors and tones, but with a chaotic scheme of patterns flowing together to create the picture of myself. This idea is what developed into my concentration- the idea that seemingly disorganized brushstrokes can coincide to create something beautiful. As I continued with this idea, I watched it form to include the depression and anxiety I’ve faced from a young age. I worked to include various issues I’ve faced psychologically, and use the material to create a piece of art. This theme further developed by implementing single features, which I feel can be the most expressive traits a person can use. I used the facial features to convey a morose tone; the black and white once again used to display darkness or emptiness, with a variety of watercolor splats being used to symbolize the idea of something pleasant being created from chaos. This ties in with my final piece in my concentration, the mouth holding the pentacle; this displays the strain associated with rising above stereotypes of the social norm, with bright fiery colors, and of course the pentacle, symbolizing this. I feel that the colors implemented in my concentration are what complete the emotions which are meant to be conveyed to the viewer.

Schoology-paperless artroom here we come!

I found a great online site for secure student group management  www.schoology.com . I looked at it over the summer, but have not had a chance to set up classes and groups till recently.  As I've mentioned before our district uses Moodle. I'm not overly impressed with the user friendliness and overall appearance of Moodle.  Apparently others feel the same way, because as a district we are starting to look at other options that might be out there...yeh!  The www.schoology.com site is far more user friendly and is set up similar to facebook so the students have no trouble navigating through it. You can link it to your Moodle site too if you want.  As a district with student email account difficulties the, to say the least, an invite code rather than email option is wonderful.  I can just give them a preset code and they can log in to their course or group.  There are separate codes for each section/group and you can change them as needed and/or remove students that you don't want in that group or section.  If you do have reliable student email accounts they can register with them as well. www.schoology.com has a gallery(albums) you can set up for students, which I love for online critiques!.  Also included are discussions, attendance, tests, links, apps, calendar of events, and the list goes on.  Oh, and did I mention it's FREE! I think I found a good fit for my students and I. I'll let you know how things go.

Give it a try if you haven't and let me know how it goes.  If you are using it or have in the past let me know what you think too.    www.schoology.com

Student Teacher-Guest Blog

I had the most wonderful semester with my student teacher-Laura. Whenever you have a student teacher come into your classroom it can be a bit unsettling to give up those classroom reins to someone else.  Well, this time there was no reason for worry!  Laura did a phenomenol job. She was dynamic in the classroom, organized (more than me most of the time), and just an all around great addition to our program. She ROCKS!!!!  So, that being said, I'd like to give Laura an opportunity to share with you one of her many success stories while student teaching with me here at BDHS.....

My time at BDHS included teaching Introductory Drawing and Painting, Introductory Fibers, and Beyond & Advanced Digital Photography.  Going in to the placement, I was confident that I could teach drawing, painting, and fibers, as these were all strengths of mine in my coursework and personal artwork.  My confidence was a bit wobbly, shall we say, as I prepared to teach digital photography.  Fortunately, I had recently taken a Digital Art class to update my Photoshop knowledge (hadn’t touched it in over a decade – eek!) and borrowed a quality digital camera to refine my photography skills.  Teaching this class turned out to be a great opportunity for me to grow as a teacher and artist. 

One particular project that was fun to see progress was a copyright-free photo contest for middle and high school students called Image Ideas.  The Ideas website is sponsored by the UW-Extension to “provide Wisconsin educators with teacher-reviewed, standards-aligned lessons, interactive tools, video, high-quality digital images, & other resources for use in curriculum development and classroom instruction.”   As I introduced this project to my students, I tried to impress upon them that they needed to do their homework and understand what their client – the Ideas website – wanted from them as photographers.   I required them to investigate the website to see what photos were already available and consider what types of subject matter teachers would be interested in using.

Silo by E. Dean                                              Contest Submission

Each student was to submit five photos with at least one having a Wisconsin-focused theme.  I encouraged them to revisit locations, refine images in Photoshop (without overdoing it), and revise their selections as they progressed toward the deadline.  This was a great opportunity for student growth as they attempted to take and select photographs that would not only be high quality, but highly useful for their client as well.  After we dropped the envelope of CDs in the mail, they eagerly awaited the results.  I think I got questions daily for at least a week! 

Columbus Restaurant by T. Simon              Contest Submission

The ImageIde@s team would be awarding only two firsts and two seconds in the high school category, so we knew the competition would be intense.  I was thrilled to open the webpage of contest results to find that we had a second place winner!  It was exciting to share with the class that Emily Gibson’s photo of jellyfish at the Shedd Aquarium had earned her a new iPod Nano.  It was great to see the smile on her face as this quiet, talented student got a round of applause from her classmates.



Jellies by E. Gibson                                                                                                   2nd Place Winner

This was one of many successful projects and satisfying moments this semester.  I thoroughly enjoyed teaching at BDHS and am amazed at what our students can accomplish.  I could not have asked for a better experience in student teaching!

Nick's AP Studio Art Blog

At the beginning of the year, I experimented with other mediums like drawing and layering. Although I had some mild successes with my experimentation, at the end of the year I chose to come back to photography. After being inspired by various street and candid photographers I took my camera and went out to Madison and downtown Beaver Dam to capture the urban scenes that dot the country. My breadth was a collection of random street scenes that played with different geometries and positioning. My quality showed off my special attention to color in a photo. Finally, my concentration was about the geometry of urban scenes. I showcased the different lines and textures that work collectively to build the marvel that is the American city. Together my AP portfolio works as a grandiose collective of different patterns and themes, to magnificently pay homage to the American urban scene. Here is a snippet of my AP concentration write-up:

The geometry of urban landscapes is all around us, but the inhabitants of these cities take the awe-inspiring lines and shapes for granted. I took it upon myself to document the art of urban biomes with my camera. The lost treasure of the American city is the alleyways. These rustic lanes are overwhelmed with metropolitan detail work that uses parallel and perpendicular lines to give the city motion. The vivid oranges and browns of rust on the iron metalwork make brilliant contrast with the faded colors of the backsides of antique domiciles. Powers of metropolitan landscapes come through in the repetition of simple patterns that create ominous cityscapes. The delicate angles and busy structures move me to more simple scenes. Textures of the omnipresent walls and walkways become the main attraction against the monochromatic backgrounds, outlining the elegance of these urban mystiques...

I'm hoping to pursue photography as a hobby in the future. I find taking pictures very enjoyable and I believe I have a good eye. Though I am not going to pursue a career in art, I am glad that I had the opportunity to take AP Art Studio, because It has definitely helped me learn and grow as a young artist.

Emily N's AP Studio Art Blog

It's been a long year in AP Studio Art. It was all worth the worries, all the things that we've had to do and all the projects. This has been one of the best classes that I've had it was well worth taking. It's made me a stronger photographer adn I've learned a lot of new things along the way through this journey. My pictures all have a story behind htem. I love taking pictures of old things outside. I never thought you could capture such good pictures from just the simple little things you find laying around. Something that was fun was finding things I liked and that I wanted to take pictures of. I found that I love weird angles and that my images come out better that way that thats my way of expressing myself in them. I also found out that I have to take pictures alone, I cant have anyone around.  I like the old rustic things and barn wood and the color that it is. All my photos have to do with things that are around me everyday and things that I see all the time. I'd like to keep photography in my life after high school. Maybe as a side job or as a full time job, you never know.

Kaley's AP Studio Art Blog

This year has been crazy for me. Between juggling 3 jobs, 4 AP classes and a boyfriend, the one thing that has kept me sane through these past 9 months has been my artwork. Photography has taught me a great deal about life. I see things better through a camera and I feel so accomplished after reviewing my work at the end. I started off with just taking pictures of anything and everything I could find. Macro photography was a big hit for me. Everything just seems so much more interesting up close or when you can't see the big picture. When I was asked to do some family pictures for a friend, my confidence in my work sky rocketed. I went from nervousness to excitement within an hour! I had never taken a lot of people pictures, but they had faith in me so I knew it would be okay. Since that family shoot, I've done quite a few other family portraits as well as portraits for seniors, weddings, babies, and couples. I learn something new every time I pick up my camera. I enjoy telling stories with my work and showing things as they progress. I hope to continue learning more as I venture through college. My goal is to major in Digital Design and minor in Photography. Who would have thought?! I can't wait to see where my future takes me.