Just Face It

Paula H (S4, OLSP) finished her Standard Grade Art & Design recently, on her last day, she’s sits an expressive unit test were pupils have to complete a piece of expressive work in a day. This work is then sent for assessment. The work above is a preliminary ‘try-out’ for the exam. Paula re-drew the pastel image at least 5 or 6 times so that she would be confident in her exam. It’s a beautiful piece of pastel and quite a close resembling self-portrait.

Sky Wolf

This week’s ‘Work from Home’ comes from Serena M F (S1, OLSP). It’s a fantastical pastel sketch taken from her sketch pad. Serena has worked tones and colours together to produce this weird, but interesting composition of a landscape and animal portrait. It reminds me of a film poster composition.

Mrs Hull’s Young Apprentices

I’ve been posting some submissions from my school’s Art Department to TESS (Teaching Supplement), to feature in their Art Section. I couldn’t give up the chance of letting you see some of the pupil work my colleague, Mrs Hull (OLSP), has been supervising across the corridor. These submissions were pre-lim examples for the S4 Standard Grade expressive exam last year. Pupils usually sit the exam with objects in front of them, or a photo along with a pre-trial version of their exam composition. This gives them the biggest chance to succeed, as it is asking a lot for a pupil to be at their artistic best on the day. Lots of things can go wrong and the pupil could have artistic block or an ‘off day’.

At the very top Emma H and Patrick McC (S4, OLSP) show off their painting skills with beautiful studies of fruit, bottles and a basket. Mrs Hull’s still life resources are very luxurious, it makes the pupils’ work look a lot more mature, even professional. Her teaching methods help the pupils focus on capturing pockets of colour in an expressive, yet controlled manner. If you can observe and record the right reflections and perfect your eclipses in your work, like Holly McP‘s (S4, OLSP) pastel study below, you can produce impressive work, though this would be a lot easier if you have a great mentor like Mrs Hull.

Breakfast, Breakfaster

Emily G (S3, OLSP) sat her Standard Grade Expressive Exam a few weeks ago and I have only gotten ’round to taking the images off my phone. Here is the best photo I’ve taken of her pastel piece based on the ‘Breakfast’ theme, it had to be taken in a hurry as the pieces were sent for marking right after the exam finished. I love her use of vivid colours along with that great capturing of the breakfast spoon and its reflections.

“Cats The Way To Do It”

This is the last post before the Xmas/New Year’s break and I have a nice work in progress to show to you. Megan B (S4, OLSP) has been working toward her Prelim Standard Grade Exam piece. She’s actually just started her prelim exam above and is using her previous piece and the original photo as her resources to work from.

There’s still a lot of work to do before her actual exam, though I think she’s well on her way. The subject is interesting, her proportions are very good and she’s observing the light and shades really well. Just a little work on tonal exercises and a bit more colour mixing theory should have her confident and ready to sit her actual exam. An excellent piece to end the year on…

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year Everyone!

Louise’s Focus

Louise G (S4, OLSP) shows that intense drawings don’t necessarily need the control and the quiet of a classroom environment. Good works can be completed at home as long as you have a sturdy flat surface to work on. Sadly the colours of the butterfly wing are lost in my photo of it, though the vivid pastels on the original are big, bold and chewy on the eyes.

Her ruling and measuring  of the building piece helps, what could have been a naive image, look  much more interesting and dramatic… Almost like a film storyboard drawing.

What A Relief

This week’s artwork comes from the amazing Hannah K (S2, OLSP). Hannah has been working with the rest of her peers in trying to create a 3D relief piece about human endeavour or human achievement. I believe that Hannah’s piece is about community/networked lighting and features lots of buildings being illuminated by a similar means that Thomas Edison invented over 120 years ago.

Hannah’s work is so clean and immaculately done, from her deep black to pale white pastel gradients, through to her cutting and gluing. This attention to detail will make her relief piece look extremely professional and it should make her final 3D image really successful.

In Paula’s Hands

Unfortunately due my laziness, the blog has fallen into a bit of a slump. I thought I should kick start it back on track with some great skill from Paula A H (S3, OLSP High) who’s work from home was featured two weeks ago. Paula has been working on analytical drawings of her own hands (one with her drawing hand, the other with her non-drawing hand (above)), and a pastel study as an alternative to  portraiture.

Paula’s skill is very obvious, even in her pastel piece that is still to be finished. Paula starts off the piece by drawing an outline of the shapes, she then adds highlighted blobs of colour to build up the form. When using pastel it is advisable to work from light to dark colours as it is easy to cover a white pastel with black, but impossible to cover a black pastel with white.

Really beautiful work. I’ll update this post when the piece has been finished. Well Done Paula.

Like Chalk And Charcoal

I created this exemplar for S4′s introduction to Chalk and Charcoal techniques. The exemplar contains how to layout your drawing in charcoal (either compacted or vine), as well as the three main techniques of applying pastels; Scribbling, Smudging and Dashing. I didn’t use Scubbing, because I hate the technique and think that it ruins work rather than adds to it. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, why don’t you search ‘charcoal techniques’ on youtube.

Pretty / Ugly

It’s been very strange that Beth W has not had an Artwork of the Week yet, she made an amazing sports collage that was exhibited in Paisley Museum, she created a great Skeleton Bride for the Day of the Dead and never seems to do any wrong, her work is flawless. It is for this reason that I have had to acknowledge Beth now, even if it is a little late.

Beth decided not to keep her artwork which has been very beneficial to the school and myself. Her sports collage and skeleton sculpture are decorating the art corridor wall, while her Jekyll and Hyde book (above) is now part of my own growing collection of strong pupil work.

So why do I like this cover so much? The pencil side is beautifully sketched, in fact it almost made Beth and I cry when we had to cut it in half for the cover. The depth of the eye along with the shadowing around the nose makes the portrait very intense. Although the drawing looks at lot older than Beth, its resemblance is accurate. The monster side is disturbingly simplistic, its stretched nose and bloodshot eye show a diseased and unhappy Hyde rather than a strong, cliched one. The type is also cleanly cut after many attempts.

I don’t understand why Beth chooses not to keep her own work, though I’m glad, for my benefit, that that is her choice.