No class Wednesday 4/14/10

Students,

I'm sorry for the late notice, but I'm feeling ill and need to cancel this afternoon. I'd like you to take the extra time you've got this afternoon to work on your next drawing for your series, which is due on Monday. If you'd like a little more exercise with linear perspective, try incorporating it into your drawing! Keep well, and I'll see you on Monday.

Sincerely,

Jim

Due March 15th, Midterm Project Proposal

Our goal for the midterm project is for you to create a drawing that represents you as a visual artist, right now. You will decide its subject, its general purpose, and its aesthetic qualities, but each of these decisions needs to be purposeful, and the steps of this project will push you to do your best work.

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Due on Monday, March 15th, is a typed proposal for your project, accompanied by images. There are several questions I would like you to answer in this proposal. First: how or where would you like people to experience your art? Do you want to draw a comic book, design a mural to be painted on a wall, create a poster to be reprinted and hung in many places, sell works of art for people to hang in their homes, or make a gallery installation?

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Second: which artists would you describe as your influences? I would like you to name at least three artists, and find one work of art by each that represents the example that you would like to follow. These artists can be examples for you in several ways: you might be interested in their style, you might identify with their ideas, or you might see their professional identity as a model. Your proposal should be accompanied by three images, one from each of these artists. One of these examples must be a drawing. The other two can be in any artistic media.

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Three: what is the specific subject, theme, or idea that you intend to use for your midterm drawing? The answer to this question will vary depending on what sort of art you intend to make, but basically I’d like you to demonstrate that you’ve thought of a direction for this project. If you’re doing a symbolic self-portrait, what will be its general theme? If you’re doing a comic book page, what story will you tell? If you’re doing a mural, what are you hoping to contribute to the community of people who will see it?

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This typed statement should be anywhere between five hundred and one thousand words in length, which can be determined using the “word count” feature of your word processing program. This feature is usually found in the “tools” option on the taskbar. Your statement should be typed, double-spaced, (which means leaving a space between each line), and proofread for spelling, grammar, and clarity. Ask someone else to read your paper and to explain what it says to you, to make sure that I will understand it also. I will deduct from your grade if your statement doesn’t follow the instructions, if errors in spelling and grammar make it difficult to read, or if I can’t understand your basic answer to each of the above questions.

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You may include examples of your previous drawings, either actual drawings or printed photographs of drawings, if it helps you to explain what you’d like to do. This proposal is due Monday, March 15th. I will respond to your proposal by Wednesday, March 17th, but I recommend that you start working on your midterm drawing project as soon as possible because a drawing based on your proposal is due for critique on Wednesday, March 24th.

Due Monday, March 8th:

For Monday, I'd like you to make an expressionistic scene backdrop based on a specific place, in the form of a horizontal 18 x 24” drawing finished in charcoal or ink.

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Begin with sketches or photographs of the place you intend to use, focusing on interesting and possibly meaningful shapes. If digital photographs are used, the four most representative photos should be printed for submission with the final piece. It should be possible to print all four on the same page, if you like. In either case, at least four sketches or photos should be submitted with the final drawing.
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The goal of this assignment is to create a scene backdrop that sets an emotional tone through purposeful aesthetic choices. I would like you to decide, what sort of story is to be played out in front of this backdrop, and how can the visual effect of the backdrop contribute to the emotional tone of that story? It might help to think of a particular story or genre of story—tragedy, romance, suspense, comedy, dream narrative—look for a place which would be a suitable backdrop for this story, and then to consider how the backdrop might visually match the story. Don’t be subtle! I chose The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as an example because it’s so extreme in its visual choices. If you’re stumped for another idea, try making a backdrop for a new version of Caligari, set in your world.

Due Monday, March 1st

Your assignment for the weekend is to adapt your 9 x 12" symbolist drawing from Monday's class into an 18 x 24" charcoal drawing in a way that reflects your aesthetic values. I will collect all of the work-- your sketches, your 9 x 12" drawing, and the 18 x 24" drawing on Monday.

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In class, we discussed the aesthetic flavor of paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, Giorgio de Chirico, Gustav Klimt, and others, with an emphasis on their use of value contrasts, directional lines, open and closed shapes, compositional balance and imbalance, and positive/negative shape relationships. I would like you to work on your charcoal drawing by making conscious choices in your approach to at least three of these five concepts.

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In other words: will your image be dominated by low value constrasts like this painting by Friedrich, or high value contrasts like this painting by de Chirico? Will you use directional lines to lead the eye of the viewer around your image? Will your objects be defined through hard closed shaped, or cloudy open shapes? Will you energize your composition by opposing your positive objects with strong negative shapes? I don't expect you to have a fully-formed sense of style like Friedrich or de Chirico, but it's time for you to start thinking consciously about the aesthetic flavor that you want your work to have: Calm, or dramatic? Specific, or vague? Graceful, or rough? A good place to start would be to ask yourself how these choices might support the theme of your image.

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Imagine your drawing on the wall of the classroom on Monday, and ask yourself: does it have a strong aesthetic flavor? Or does it feel like you worked on the drawing until you didn't know what else to do with it? If you can't imagine at least two options for each decision you make in a drawing, then you're not making decisions at all. This drawing should demonstrate that you recognized a number of aesthetic choices, beginning with those listed above, and in each case made a clear choice.

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If you can, try to enjoy this process! I recognize that it can be frustrating to have to make a drawing according to someone else's specifications, but this project raises a lot of interesting stylistic questions whose answers will say a lot about your sense of purpose as an artist.

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Spray your drawing with fixative when you're done, so it won't rub off on everyone else's drawings when you turn it in. If you can, spray outside, or at least in a well-ventilated space. It's bad stuff for your lungs.

due Wednesday, February 24th

Your assignment is to finish what we started in class. The final drawing should be in pencil or ink, on a 9 x 12" sheet of paper or later, margins optional. Please remember that the most important considerations for this assignment are your use of symbols to represent ideas and your composition of those symbols into a design that aids your expressive purpose. I will also collect your brainstorming sketches and three compositional thumbnails.

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I hope you understood the parameters of the assignment from class, but just in case you're confused I'll repeat them here:

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The title of this project is "beset by demons." Your drawing will depict an individual being attacked by problems. The individual will represent either you, a concept (for example, Nature, Technology, or the U.S.A.), or "everyman." The problems should be specific to that individual. For example, it might be you attacked by the problems you have as a student, it could be nature being attacked by environmental problems, or it could be an everyman being attacked by problems of contemporary life.

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The first step of the assignment is to choose a theme, both the individual being attacked and some of the problems attacking them. The next step is to brainstorm visual symbols that might be used to represent these problems. You will find that some problems lend themselves to representation better than others. For example, death is well-represented by a skeleton, but the national budget deficit is hard to embody in a particular symbol. You may even want to reconsider your choice of theme if the first one doesn't work out. Don't consider this a waste of time! It's all part of the learning process.

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The third step is to draw three different thumbnail sketches of how the individual and its problems might be composed in your final drawing. A thumbnail sketch may be anywhere from two to five inches on each side, the main consideration being whether you can get a good sense of how each arrangement will be experienced by the viewer. Consider grouping objects into larger shapes, the arrangement of positive and negative shapes in the composition, and whether you want to guide the eye around the image with directional lines. When you find a composition that satisfies you, make it into a simple 9 x 12" drawing.

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The final drawing may be entirely in pencil, with shading used to represent darks, although you may ink it if you prefer. The drawing doesn't need to include many details, but it should be clean.

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As our example in class demonstrated, your final drawing doesn't have to be profound. The most important consideration is whether you have succeeded in communicating the basic purpose of the image to the viewer: is the theme of the image reasonably clear? Can the viewer find the individual who is the subject of the piece, and identify the individual symbols that represent its problems? Does the composition feel purposeful?

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Have fun!

Due Monday, February 22nd

Your assignment is to produce a design for a mural on a 9 x 24" sheet of paper. (an 18 x 24", cut in half the long way) You may surround your image with a one inch border, or not.

The design should contain three separate areas of focus. In the painting by Thomas Hart Benton that we analyzed in class, the focal areas are planned around three vertical poles. The card game and cowboys with rifles are arranged on the central axis. The band and dancers are arranged around an axis to the left, and the cowboys breaking horses are arranged along an axis to the right. These groups are each arranged along structural lines. In this painting the structural lines are mostly curves, but our eyes can be led around an image by straight lines as well. I recommend that you start planning your design by playing around with abstract lines and shapes and seeing what images they suggest to your mind. The theme of the mural can be anything-- cowboys, a political revolution, robots. Anything!

The real challenge of this assignment will be to relate the different focal areas of your mural to one another. I'd like you to keep our work with positive and negative shapes in mind. You're not just drawing things! You're drawing lines and shapes that should have a particular visual character. Plan out your design using pencil, and finish it with ink. You may use a pen, a sharpie felt-tip marker, or a brush, but the design should include both areas of white and black shapes. I will display these assignments next to your postitive-negative designs from two weeks ago, to compare whether the overall design is visually interesting when viewed from a distance, so you should judge your own work by taking a step back from it every now and then.

IMPORTANT NOTES

OUR CLASS IS NOT MEETING ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15TH BECAUSE OF THE HOLIDAY. HAVE A GREAT LONG WEEKEND!

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For class on Wednesday, February 17th, I'd like you to bring pencil, sharpener, erasers, paper, scissors, and glue.

Due Wednesday, February 17th:

You can call it a comic book page, you can call it a page from a graphic novel, you can even call it sequential art, your assignment is to tell a little story in panels on a single page. You may include empty word baloons to fill in later, but no words should appear on this assignment when you turn it in. You may use symbol-signs, like a question mark above the head of a confused character, if you like, but a good storyteller won't need them. You may add as much detail as you like, but I'll be far more interested in how you arrange the shapes of each composition, so I strongly recommend that you start there.

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Your shapes and their arrangement will communicate your story more effectively than any of the details you will add later. Your shapes will also communicate the feeling of the story through aesthetic experience: do the shapes and arrangements feel playful, violent, relaxed, moody, or some combination of these? If the feelings of your characters change, then so should the way that you present them!

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The characters can be anything you like: people, animals, animate objects, but I want you to pay more attention to their shapes than their surface design. It's okay if you leave your figures blank, but they should be made of solid shapes and not stick figures.

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It will help to concentrate on the shapes if you stick to black and white. You may use grey tones but please limit your greys to shapes and don't get into a lot of shading. Doing as much as you can with limited means is a part of the assignment.

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Your assignment should be done on a 9 x 12" sheet of drawing paper, which is a quarter of a standard 18 x 24" pad, with a one inch border on each side. (So, you'll be working within a rectangle of 7 x 10".) You must include at least four different panels, but they can be shaped any way you like and they can overlap. Draw your page in pencil, and then go over it again using any kind of ink you like. You might enjoy using a brush, but a black gel pen or even a sharpie will be fine. If you make a mistake while inking, it'll be okay for you to cut panels out and glue them onto a clean new sheet, but it should be done cleanly enough that a person standing on the far side of our classroom wouldn't know.

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If you're absolutely blank of ideas, you may borrow the story of any of the pages I gave you in class, but your version should be arranged VERY differently from the original. Have fun!

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(Image: a page from The Death of Speedy, by Jaime Hernandez)

for Wednesday, February 10th:

CHANGE TO SYLLABUS: You will need pencil, eraser, and paper for Wednesday's class. If you have a twelve-inch ruler then you should bring that as well, but it isn't required. Our classes on Color have been moved, so we can further our study of Composition with an exercise involving sequential art (comics).

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Your class exercise from Monday, February 8th, should be ready to turn in at the beginning of class on Wednesday. Remember, your goal is to create an asymmetrical design of interlocked positive and negative shapes that leads the eye back and forth through the composition. The image accompanying this post is the completed version of my classroom demonstration.

For Monday, February 8th

The basic challenge of this assignment is to make your chosen shape "disappear" into a design of interlocking positive and negative shapes. By "disappear," I mean that your chosen shape should not be more visually powerful than any of the shapes around it, and a good test of that is to ask yourself whether its identity is almost lost in the overall design.
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It's hard to make a recognizable shape less interesting than abstract shapes, but it can be done. It will help if you can think of your recognizable shape as part of the background, and concentrate on getting something interesting to happen in the rest of the design.
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Please keep in mind that one of the goals of this assignment is for you to explore your aesthetic preferences, which in this case means creating a design that somehow appeals to you.

For Wednesday, February 3rd:

Please bring scissors and glue to class. A gluestick will be easiest for you to use, but rubber cement or a bottle of white craft glue (like Elmer's Glue) will work just as well. You may bring an exacto knife instead of scissors if you have one.
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I would also like you to design a simple shape for use in a classroom exercise. It can be abstract if you're a fan of patterns, but I recommend starting with a shape that you like or identify with, like the silhouette of a bird or other animal. Try drawing the shape a few times to make it more visually appealing. In class, I recommended that you imagine if you were going to tattoo this shape on your arm or ankle. When you've got something you like, draw it on a sheet of blank paper and bring this to class. Try making the image about the size of your palm, which is probably three or four inches square.