Tracy's Art Class doing. art.

Term 4 Art Assignments

Can you believe that we are already beginning term 4?

You will be responsible for 2 major assignments to be completed this term. You will be expected to work on them during class time as well as outside of class therefore I expect you to come to class with your sketchbooks and anything else you may need to complete your assignments.

1 – Sketchbooks – 10 drawings/paintings/collages in your sketchbooks. These are 10 of your choice. If you have a difficult time coming up with ideas come see me and we will think together. Please include a few lines describing the intention for each drawing, ie – what it is you set out to achieve with the work and whether or not you think you succeeded. You can write these on the back of the drawings or under separate cover and hand it in with your sketchbook.

2 – Independent project – One of the following:

1. Design a webpage dedicated to an art style. Include dates, description, major artists, the reason for the style (there is always a reason, though you may need to look for it!), images (do this legally, come see me if you aren’t sure how), and anything else you may want to add. Your webpage should have a minimum of 6 subsections. This is to be an original design, popular webpage creators like piczo won’t be accepted.
2. Create a book in the style of a specific artist. This would be a short story or a set of quotations that are illustrated in the style of an artist of your choice. Include a short biography (written by you) of the artist at the end of your book. Your book should have no fewer than 6 pages with a well-designed hard cover.
3. Your choice. Come see me if you have another idea and we will work out a project together.

I will be evaluating these based on:

• quality of the research, ie – that you have used a variety of sources for your research, that you have presented your findings in your own words, that you are not just repeating things other people have said word for word. Plagiarism will result in my not evaluating the project and therefore a failure.
• presentation and design, ie – it is visually appealing. Thought has been put into colour choice, how you have laid out each page, etc…
• quality of the finished project, ie – that it looks complete, that when I look at it I can tell time, effort, and thoughtfulness was put into it. Elements such as incorrect spelling, scratched out words or drawings, broken links, images that don’t load, etc…will take away from the overall effect and therefore lower your final score.
• organization – I will be checking in with you once a week to see where you are at in your assignments. You will get marks for staying on top of your work

In other words… Impress me!

Reverse Graffiti

Inhabitat.com – Reverse Graffiti – Clean, green street art

The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts – Reverse Graffiti

The Reverse Graffiti Project – home page. Contains youtube videos…

The Reverse Graffiti Project – non-youtube video

Ossario – Alexandre Orion – video

Ossario.net

Read the articles.
Watch the videos.
Talk about them with each other.

Write a 1 – 2 page response about what you read and saw. Use specific examples from the videos and articles. Use these questions as guides:

How is reverse graffiti the same as traditional graffiti?
How is it different?
Is one ‘better’ than the other?
Why or why not?
Do you think it is art? Why or why not?

OR

Create a 1 to 2 minute video response (use your webcams) using the same questions as guides and using specific examples from what you read and saw to support your answers.

Feel free to do some independent research

More paper art resources, via twitter

How cool is this?

Giant Paper Robot Fight – Shin Tanaka Contest from elemental on Vimeo.

Yesterday I put a call for resources re: art with paper on twitter and received some great ones.

A task for my students (and anyone else who would like to try )
Find one more paper art related website, a good juicy one, to add to this collection of resources. Once you’ve found it, come see me and we will add it to this post. Please check that it isn’t already on this page of links before you come see me.

Origami related
Origami club

Art Exhibitions
Slash: Paper Under the Knife at Museum of Art and Design

Making things with paper
Paper University

The Toymaker (a bit young, but there are some cute things to find here.)

Snowflake patterns for when you just want to cut some paper

More!
Go here to find some delicious links to paper artists. GO – there are some great ones, like giant robots and sculptures

Paper Art

Artists who work with paper

Kylie Stillman, Paper carving & sculpture artist

Calvin Nicholls, Canadian Paper Sculpture artist

Modern examples of pop-up books by Robert Sabuda, etc. with videoclips

Timothy Rose, Mobile artist

Kirigami, Escher’s optical illusions done in cut-out kirigami.

A concise history of Pop-Up Books from the exhibit, The Great Menagerie, about pop-up books & their history. Short video clips of
most books, illustrating some of their moveable parts.

Pop-up book history, types, revival & suggested links

Design & inventions in origami

Peter Callesen, paper cutout art

Je tag, donc je suis

One of my favourite lines from ‘Bomb It’ is ‘Je tag donc je suis’. Tagging, for the boy who said it, is what proves to him that he exists.

As you know, I am asking you to do some serious thinking and writing about graffiti. Your final piece will be an opinion essay on a topic of your choice inspired by the movie.

Here is a resource for writing your opinion essay:
http://www.writefix.com/argument/

You can choose to write in either the 35553 or 3773 style.

Here are some resources for more information:

Banksy by Shepherd Fairey in Swindle Magazine

The Anti-Graffiti FAQ

How do we express ourselves in public spaces?

Stress Relief by Flow. Click image for source.

Art is now a compulsory course in Alternative and I will be teaching it this year
At the beginning of the year we will be focusing on two competencies:

• creating personal images
• appreciating images

We will be doing this by taking a look at street art – graffiti, hip-hop, skateboard, and other forms if relevant.

Some of our work will cross over into other courses you take with me: Contemporary World Issues and Ethics and Religious Culture. Who knows, maybe even History.

I’ve included some links in the sidebar to some sites I like. I’d like to add to the list. Movies, blogs, videos, websites, music, whatever. If it gets long I’ll make a new page for them.

Give me ideas. Do it with comments. Think about the guiding question – how do we express ourselves in public through art?

• What do you want to learn about?
• What do you already know?
• What would you like to create?
• What would you like to see?
• Do you know of any good websites/movies/blogs/videos we should know about?>

UnderPressure 2009

Under Pressure was created to promote international awareness of Canadian talent, culture and history in art, music and dance, as well as the other varieties of the Hip Hop Culture.

Over the past 14 years, Under Pressure has been able to host the annual event “Under Pressure International Graffiti Convention” which in turn has allowed artists from all over the world to come into Montreal and display, perform, or even converse with other professionals, in similar elements of the culture, all at one event. from Brad Crowfoot @ nutly.net

Go here to find out more about what it is: Under Pressure

Videos from UP 2009: