I nearly deleted this beautiful piece by accident, so it’s only fair that I feature it as ‘Artwork of the Week’. Laura O (S1 now S2, Art Claster and Film Maker, OLSP) finished it at the end of term last year and it got lost in my iPhoto library. I asked Laura O to create a depressing urban image and this is what she created… quite depressing, but very beautiful.
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.
This week’s artwork comes from Nadia B (S5) from Notredame High. This is her first sheet from her expressive unit. The pencil work is absolutely stunning, the photo does not do it justice. My favourite drawing has to be the egg in the egg cup. The tonal rendering is perfect. Nadia’s skill is evident in the way she can layer enough pencil marks on top on each other to merge them into looking like a solid firm object. Her skin looks like flesh, her surfaces look smooth and hard and her cloth looks soft and malleable. A truly stunning collection of drawings to end the week with. Thanks Nadia.
As a teacher, it can be hard to escape the bubble of your classroom and view artwork that is happening outside it. Gallery viewing and pupil work events can take up a lot of time and be a nightmare to get to. Organisers always seem to organise these things during the working day and hold them in some hall in the middle of nowhere.
It is sometimes worth the effort though. About a year or so ago I had the chance to attend an event showing Intermediate work across Scotland and found the work below. There is so much involved in the three sheets, they are full of emotion and drama. I was absolutely flabber-gasted when I saw them.
I have no idea who they’re by or what the final grade awarded was, though I’m sure you’ll agree that they are an inspiration for those of us wanting to change the idea of what Intermediate portraiture is about.
Here are a few of my ideas of why these sheets work so well:
• there is no main focus around someone wearing a school uniform, so the work looks less institutional and amateur.
• the use of stripes and colourful pattern makes the sheets jump out.
• the sheets are completely jam-packed. It’s like the work has had to be squeezed into the sheets. It looks like the pupil had more work that we were able to see due to space restrictions.
• the portraits are not the usual face on, no smile or expression, ‘I’m sitting on a school chair in school’ pose. Each image is mixed and usually features two people interacting.
• it’s mostly done in painted media.
Most of my pupils are completely sick of hearing me say, “you need to make that choice,” anytime they ask me about what they should do. Art is about the choices we make, the choice of subject, the choice of media, our composition choice and the effort we choose to put into the piece. Every pupil should have the confidence to make the choice needed to ‘better’ their piece, though sometimes it helps to get a little guidance into that decision… I guess that is why teachers are there, to offer that guidance.
April (S3) is working on her portraiture final piece, the last sheet of her Intermediate unit. She has spent a long time fine tuning the pencil work on her face, but is now ready to focus on the background of the image. She has chosen what object will be in the pattern of her background; a cassette tape, though she is not sure whether the pattern should be repetitive or irregular.
Choice 1: The Repetitive Pattern
Choice 2: The Scattered Pattern
The Art Classroom would like you to vote for your choice. Which image do you prefer, which image is stronger? In the poll below, make your choice and help April make her choice.
Jerome from S2 has been busy at home producing this marvellous drawing of an eye. He is studying portraiture in class at the minute, so it is nice to see that he has taken those class pointers and used them at home to create an interesting image. This is actually better than some S4 eye studies that I’ve seen, so Jerome should be proud of the qualities he has been able to achieve in his drawings. Just look at the light reflections on the eyeball. Looks wet doesn’t it? Brilliantly observed.
Katherine from S3 has just finished her tonal study for her first sheet of her portrait unit (Intermediate 2). The study was completed in HB pencil and is entirely hand drawn. Her style is very light, focused, with each line carefully considered and she has spent around 6 – 8 periods to achieve it to this standard. Although it reminds me a little of a Victorian doll’s face or Japanese Noh masks, it’s this style that makes it really stand out for me. It’s not exactly photographic, and by not being so, it offers to tell us more than any photo of Katherine ever could. A marvellous piece of expressive portraiture.
After the Scream unit was completed, 2A peer marked each others work. They were asked to award each other points. The points were written on tickets, then each ticket was placed at a favourite work. Each pupil had to award ten points to their favourite piece, then nine points and so on until they gave out their last ticket which was a single point. The points were then counted up and three winners were chosen and framed.
Karen didn’t like her final piece. She couldn’t understand why I liked it. I like her choice of the pale green background, combined with the light blue of her skin. It makes you feel claustrophobic.
Rebekah’s work was my absolute favourite, looking at the face you can really see an element of sheer fear on her face. Good use of colours too. Rebekah and Karen were sitting opposite each other, so there are clear similarities (white mouth, pink hair), though there is something about this piece that stood out above all others.
Great use of colour on the face of Rebecca’s piece. Strong purples and blues add the look of worry.
Thomas has used red to emphase the danger in his piece. The hand slightly obscuring the face shows a fear and hiding, trying to protect himself. It’s a strong piece.
There’s a great expression on Blair‘s face, the use of cold blues and greens make the picture look very eerie. It’s as if he’s seen a ghost.
Although the proportions of Hayley‘s face are not perfect, she used a great deal of colour mixing to get that impressionistic effect. Hayley’s portrait was voted top by her classmates.
Nicole really hated this picture. She said it looked nothing like her and made her look extremely ugly. That may be the case, but I still like it’s quirkiness. There’s a kind of fun madness to it.
Gemma allowed me to keep this work, which I still have. I like the mix of attempts at 3D shading along with the flatness of the 2D shapes on the body and hand.
This pastel work of Crawford‘s is really spooky. The skin looks dead. It’s strange when you see such a cold blue in the background, but yet it’s the colour that stands out as being bright and warm… very weird. Carolanne‘s piece below is beautifully bright. It’s whiteness and cleanliness lends itself to the emotion of screaming or calling for help.
Below are the winning pieces framed, the winners; Hayley, Blair and Amber got to keep their artwork along with some congratulatory sweets.
2A (07-08) had to pose for these pastel drawings. They posed in various ways conveying fear, anger and happiness. They then had to pick their favourite from the three shots and provide a black and white pen and pencil study. After looking at some impressionist works, they then created a chalk pastel colour study. The aim was to focus on the emotion, rather than it being a realistic study. There were lots of successful pieces.
David from S3 has been working on a great self-portrait. There hadn’t been much going on with it at the beginning of the period (he had the frame and a few layout lines), I had even said that it had looked a bit ‘dead’ and ‘alien-like’ due to it’s perfect symmetry. All of a sudden (well… 40 mins later), I looked over and saw the drawing below. He really did a great job on it, and it’s ‘the spit’ of him…
 | David Dunlop on Artwork Invoice |
 | SANAH on Artwork Invoice |
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 | colleenkr on Sily Mi |
| colleenkr on Sily Mi |
