Gig Posters

Last year I decided to re-introduce silkscreening to our Graphics and Commercial Design Programs. When I began the project I had NO IDEA how much work it would be!  It was insane: trying to save 30 year old frames, pulling out hundreds of staples per frame, restretching them, figuring out our screen burning system and timing, coating and cleaning frames multiple times for each student etc etc.  I had never done silkscreening before so I was learning everything for the first time as well.  Trial and error  every day for every detail! AGGH!!!  it was all worth it.  My Graphics 10 kids made amazing work and learned a ton.  Below is my assignment sheet outlining the criteria for the assignment and below that is a selection of the finished projects.

UNGOING by YouBin Lee

  second curated student exhibition featuring YouBin Lee:

Ungoing:

I think too much.  I think about my day, people, the past and the future.  All these thoughts tumble through my mind, crash into one another, get in the way.  These thoughts need to be organized.  They need to become a pattern.  Through these works I reorganize myself.  I recognize where I am.  I heal myself.  I'm not done thinking yet.  I will never be finished, but now I know where to put all these thoughts, what to do with all these patterns.

The Conversation That I Never Had: Part 1

The Conversation That I Never Had: Part 2

Everything Has Something In It: Part 1

Everything Has Something In It: Part 2

I'm Confused

FRACTALS by Angus Johnson

Welcome to the first of many student artist solo exhibitions to be featured on our blog.

Our featured artist this week is Angus Johnson.  Angus spends his days in our graphics lab.  Most of the time he should probably be somewhere else.  Most of the time he is not working on what he's supposed to be working on.  But he is always making art.  It is very rare that you meet a young artist with the amount of dedication, drive,  imagination and individual and unique vision as Angus.

Fractals

Fractals are geometrical patterns that are exactly the same at every scale.

Detailed mathematical constructs: The cells in our bodies, leafs on the trees,  the stars in the galaxies.

This is an ongoing project that explores their existence and relevance in everyday life.

Check out some of Angus's other amazing artwork here

Ripped Paper Drawings

Another beautiful assignment from my Life-skills/Learning Assistance class:

Students found a partner and created these compositions collaboratively.  Some students called them mozaics and some wanted to call them collages, which are both somewhat accurate descriptions.  I preferred to refer to them as ripped-paper drawings because the focus of the class was that we could make art out any material - and we could think of drawing in any way that we wanted - not just precious sketches with an HB pencil.

I started by asking them to fill in a border thinking that I would interupt them later to go onto my next set of instructions.  Well, they did the border but they got so into it that they didn't stop.  And of course I didn't want to stop them when they were so immersed in the art making process so I let them keep going with no further instruction.  Some of them naturally developed abstract images.  We talked about abstraction: what it meant and why it was an interesting way of creating art.  I used the example of seeing things in clouds and the kids immediately perked up and started an excited discussion of the various things that they were seeing in the drawings.  I know it's a limited way of looking at abstract art but whatever works right?

Here are some of the beautiful results:

Jennifer Law (her partner was not into it and went to draw hockey players:)

 Navdeep Binning, Delvin

 Elton Lee, Najma Passayer, Deborah Broadley

Crystal Lam, Casey Kong

The Painters' Apprentices PART 2

We continue our apprenticeship program in Grade 10.  Students can choose a painter to be their very own mentor.  It was very interesting to discover who each of the students chose because there was almost always a very vivid connection between the personality of the student and the style of the painter with whom he or she identified.  I love that stuff.  Students also had to design the gilded frames that surrounded their work.  This group knocked every assignment that I gave them out of the park.  Amazing stuff.

Apprentice: Claire VanRoggen
Mentor: Roy Lichtenstein
Painting: Sweet Dreams Baby

Apprentice: Saya Engleson

Mentor: Pierre Bonnard

Painting:  Wildflowers

Apprentice: Melody lim

Mentor:  Pierre Bonnard

Painting: The White Cat

Apprentice: Claire Liu

Mentor: Edvard Munch

Painting: The Scream

Many students chose to learn from Vincent Van Gogh, for an obvious reason: he's the best.  

Apprentice: Jing Yu Wang

Mentor: Vincent

Painting: A Cornfield With Cypress

Apprentice: Jaime yang

Mentor: VVG

Painting: The Cafe Terrace, Arles At Night

Apprentice: Nancy Lu

Mentor: ahh you know

Painting: (Detail from) Crows Over a Cornfield

The PAINTER'S APPRENTICES

In general,  I value the development of creativity, imagination and communication skills more than the display of technical virtuosity.  I feel that the format of a high school art class does not lend itself well to the demands of a thorough technical art education and so I choose instead to focus on the aforementioned skills.  I do, of course, incorporate some technical skills in all my assignments but try to encourage those keen students to draw draw draw at home to develop their technical abilities.  One of my grade 9 painting assignments is based on the idea that the only way to learn how to paint is to paint.  And the best way to paint well is to copy the art of master painters.  In fact, back before the invention of photography, when painting was considered a trade like carpentry or plumbing, painters (like carpenters or plumbers) would take on apprentices who would learn the skills of the trade from them.  One of the most common practices was having apprentices copy the master's works.  

I don't want to intimidate my young students so I only make them copy parts of a painting.  We then puzzle them back together and Voila!  Our class painting.

Great examples of the final work adding up to more than the sum of it's parts: 

 Grade 9 (2011) After Rousseau's "Tiger Hunt"

 Grade 9 (2010) Oh man! I can't remember the name of this painting or who it's by, nor can I find it         anywhere! - can anyone help me out?

Grade 9 (2011) After Odilon Redon's "Vase of Flowers (the Red Poppy)"

Stay tuned for our 2nd edition of Painter's Apprentices featuring my grade 10 assignment and the beautiful paintings that spring from it - coming within days!

And our 2012 editions will be posted in the coming months

L.A. ART!!!

Our Learning Assistance Crew is having a blast this year in their first program specific art class.

The class is designed to be flexible to each student's artistic drive and preferences so we're doing loads of different projects.  One of the first class assignments was to draw the inside of our house in as much detail as possible.  There were very few other requirements or criteria.  I wanted to see how each student would solve the problem on their own.  Ok enough blabbing - here are some of the beautiful results:

Casey Kong

Peng Guo Yu

Navdeep Binning