Summer Work 2-D, 3-D & Sculpture Portfolio
Pre-AP Work
Develop five ideas for his/her Concentration and produce five sketches for each idea in their sketchbook.
The fourth through sixth Breadth pieces are completed. (A total of 6)
Following Sketchbook rules; fill your sketchbook halfway by September. And decorate your cover.
To help energize these creative juices the students are required to read/watch any and all artist information/stories posted on the class website.
Visit an Art Museum or Art Center. Sketch in your sketchbook while you are there!
Check this website every week.
- Students will complete 2-4 pieces of Breadth during art classes preceding AP Studio Art.
- Student will bring critique skills and practice of work in their sketchbooks to AP Studio Art.
SKETCHBOOK
Summer Assignment for All Portfolios: Fill 20 of your sketchbook pages, front and back. And decorate your cover!
Rules for working in your sketchbook:
- DO NOT make “perfect” drawings. Make imperfect drawings; make mistakes; make false starts. Let your hand follow your feelings, not what your brain is telling you to do.
- ALWAYS FILL the page you are working on. Go off the edges whenever possible. Do not make dinky little drawings in the center of the page. Make very square inch count for something.
- Do not start something and abandon it. Go back later, change it, and make it into something else. Being able to rescue bad beginnings is the sign of a truly creative mind.
- Always finish what you start no matter how much you don’t like it.
- Fill at least half your sketchbook before September 1st.
- Put the date on every page you finish.
- DO NOT DRAW FROM PHOTOGRAPHS, magazines, etc. The use of published photographs or the work of other artists for duplication is plagiarism. Draw from observation, things you see in the world. Learn to translate the dynamic three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional world.
- By September 1st, your sketchbook should be twice as thick as it was when you got it.
- NO CUTE, PRETTY, PRECIOUS, ADORIBLE, or TRITE images. This is a college-level art class, not a recreation program to make pretty pictures to hang in your house. Expect your ideas about what make good art to be challenged.
- Don’t be boring with your work. Challenge us!
- Avoid showing your work to others unless you know they are going to understand what you are trying to do in your sketchbook. You don’t need negative feedback when you are trying out new ideas or experimenting. This is a place for risk taking. Don’t invite criticism unless you are confident that it won’t derail your free spirit.
- Draw, draw, draw, draw, paint, paint, paint, draw, paint, draw, collage, etc.
- Use pencils, pens, crayons, sticks, charcoal, burnt matches, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, pine straw, fingers, basically anything that will make a mark. You have the power to make a mark.
- Draw what you SEE in the world. No drawings from published images (plagiarism) or personal photographs. You need to learn to draw without the crutch of someone else’s composition or flattening of space.
- Use gesture, line, and value in your drawings. Try to create a sense of light and depth in your images.
- Use the principles of perspective to show depth in a drawing.
- Glue stuff into your sketchbook, i.e., ticket stubs, gum wrappers, tin foil, lave, lists, receipts, sand leaves, twigs, pebbles, shells, earrings, shoelaces, whatever. Make a collage with the stuff. Add these things to pages that you have started but don’t like. Let you imagination go wild.
- Build the pages up by layering things, paint on top of collage, newspaper, and drawing. Attach pieces of fabric and photographs and paint over parts of them. What did you do? What are you trying to say?
- Express yourself! Work to develop mastery in concept, composition, and execution of your ideas.
- Make decisions about what you do based on how things look. Go for the tough look, not the easy solution. Do not be trite; say something important about the world you live in.
- Take a news story and interpret it visually, use abstraction to express an idea.
- Play around with geometric and organic forms, interlocking and overlapping to create an interesting composition. Use color to finish the work.
- Create a self-portrait using distortion, or Cubism, or Impressionism, or Minimalism, or Pop.
- Create a drawing of the interior of your room but add collage elements for the lamps, and furniture. Glue sheer fabric over the collage. Draw an image on the sheer fabric of yourself moving around in the room.
- Make at least 100 gesture drawings from observation of the figure.
- Make at least 25 contour drawings from observation of anything around you. Remember to use the whole page! Fill in the space behind the objects you draw. Make it count for something.
- Make a simple contour drawing of an arrangement of objects. Repeat the drawing four times. Explore different color schemes in each of the four drawings. Write about how the color changes the feeling in each image.
- Write about your work. Write about what you like about drawing, what you don’t like about it. Write about your hopes for your artwork. Write about why you like to make art.
- Write about how your artwork could impact another’s thinking or feeling. Write about what you want to say with your artwork, and what it means to you in the larger sense.
- Lastly, this experience should be for your growth as an art students, as a person who values art as a means of expression. Keep it for yourself so that you will feel free to work without judgment. Remember this is an ongoing process that uses informed and critical decision making to develop ideas.
- Bring your sketchbook to the first class in September. You will have an opportunity to select the pates you want to share. We will use your experience as an introduction to some of the thinking that you will be engaged in during the AP Studio Art course.
- There will be PRIZES for:
- Thickest sketchbook
- Most expressive/imaginative use of media
- Most risk taking
- Best cover design
- Best sketchbook experience story
- Sketchbook Specifics:
- 24 Pages total (Sketch on 12 pages front and back for the summer assignment.)
- 9in x 12in
- Recycled Drawing Paper is preferable.