Lucy M (S6, OLSP) has been working on the first few sheets of her Advanced Higher. Her theme is based around urban destruction and renewal. Focusing on the textures of crumpled cans, walls and subversive advertising, she aims to create a perfume or an aftershave influenced by street culture. Above; the first sheet of her project without type and annotations, below; the street sticker Lucy has created to advertise her brand.
A few months ago I asked Art Classroom readers to vote on the best artwork ever featured on the blog. The polls (blog poll, twitter poll, Facebook poll and email suggestions) are now closed and the votes have been counted. It was a close contest for the first few weeks, but in the end, Anna C’s ‘Fail’ (Oban High) topped the polls by over 23 votes and showed itself as the clear winner. It is very rewarding seeing the talent and quality of the work that has been displayed on the blog in the past two years and I love the ironic twist that a painting named ‘Fail’ is the winning piece. Congratulations to Anna, an iTunes Gift Card will be on its way to you this week.
This week’s ‘AOTW’ comes from Stephanie (OLSP, S5). Stephanie created this fabulous design with Mrs Nicholson for her Higher Design Unit. She worked with me on the final piece, creating the idea using Photoshopping techniques. It was amazing to see Stephanie learn the application within hours of tutoring. Something that had taken me weeks, even months to learn, was grasped by her in under a day. Remarkable work from a remarkable student.
This week’s AOTW comes from Hanna M (S5,OLSP), I’d shown her work around a year ago. It’s developed a lot since then. She’s currently working toward finishing her expressive and design units for her higher. The image above is actually her final piece for her design unit. It’s based around a book cover design on ideas that she has developed herself. Hanna uses her drawings and her creations in Photoshop via a graphics tablet to produce her work. This gives her work an incredible finish, one of the most professional I have ever seen for someone her age.
You can follow her through her Deviant Art Profile:
I first introduced you to Narin300‘s work around a year ago. Since then, her ideas have been developing and her skills have advanced tenfold. I was so shocked at the publication of her new images featuring her interacting with her own doppelgänger that I had to show them off as soon as possible. The images remind me of work that was featured in Saatchi’s ‘Sensational’ exhibition a few years back, though they hold no pretension.
The trick is simple, though Narin has pushed it into something far more than the visual magic. It takes a while to notice that it is the same person, that’s because she has been very clever in developing slight different personalities for ‘herself’. Even when the characters are wearing similar or identical clothing, by changing her emotions or interactions, Narin has developed two different people. You could even be forgiven for thinking that these photos are of identical twins.
You can check out more of her artwork over on her deviant art profile:
Kaitlin G (S6,OLSP) applied for an Architecture course and had to submit her work on CD. We took her images into Photoshop and presented them on signatured design sheets. These sheets were then brought into iPhoto and a slide show film was made using the slide show maker available in the software. As you can see from the small film below, it has been very successful and Kaitlin has been offered a place within the course. (Details have been removed to stop spamming or contacting the pupil).
If the next three sheets are not proof of why artistic skill is much more successful than portrait photography could ever be, then I do not know what is. John L (S5, Gleniffer) is an ex-pupil and he kindly sent me some pics of his final sheets of expressive portraiture work. I’m so glad he did, so I can share them with you.
His first investigation sheet show a real skill for observation, I love the colours used in the bottom eye drawing, it shows that John can not only mix analytical skill, but he can also experiment with style and colour. It looks like it’s been attacked with a multitude of Photoshop filters… really great work.
This is where John shows that he is a very confident artist, his use of media, the oil pastel, the pen, the chalks, the paints, each piece as successful as the last. I really love the painting in the bottom right corner, the daubs on the hands is such a fine piece of work. Truly staggering.
You thought it couldn’t get better, didn’t you? Look at this final piece… honestly… just look at it… the pose… the staring eyes… the greens and blues used on the skin, the variety of textures and colours to form a surface that has more life than skin itself… honestly… just look at it. I’m speechless… it’s just great. It’s just great…
Caitlin G (S6, OLSP) finishes off the shadowing on the leaves of the foliage in her drawing above. This botanical house piece has taken her weeks to finish, it’s an intricate pen drawing with an insane amount of detail. It’s form and use of dark and negative shapes help steer the eye around and across the work. This is just a small part of her advanced higher unit, if the rest of her work is touching anywhere near this one in quality, she should do extremely well.
Here’s proof that all art does not have to be depressing and dramatic. Clair P (S6, Gleniffer) emailed this painting to me. She produced it as part of her higher. I love the style of it, it’s fun and colourful, very free and summery. It’s very unusual to see, as most portraits are either unemotional or show negative emotions and refreshing to see someone focus on some positive aspects of life in art for a change.
Helen S (S5, Oban High School) created one of my favourite pieces (above, definitely in my top ten) for the Young Brits at Art competition, it’s bluntly honest, the typography is great and the image is fragile and colourfully unhappy. I happened to come across her photographs after she twittered me. I didn’t know that she was the same Helen S from Oban and was in the middle of writing her a tweet to feature her, when she emailed and asked me would I have a look at her pics?! Spooky.
Helen’s photos are extremely thoughtful. Usually super macro shots of nature or something around us that we would probably take for granted if she hadn’t focused our attentions on its beauty.
The colours are so vivid with sharp definition of details and forms. It is hard to believe that these photos are taken by someone so young. Her subject matter varies widely too which helps hold a viewer interest. It is often disappointing when photographers get caught up in catching similar scenes and become a parody of themselves.
If you like what you see and would like to see more, visit Helen’s Deviant Art Profile:
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