ART JOURNAL 6
03/02/2020
Please think about and answer the following questions
What events/moments/personal experiences change or refine my past perspective to look at art teaching and learning now?
What current learning or art education theories do I learn related to this change or revision?
How does my art piece (or the process of making this art piece) represent this change or revision?
How does my current understanding influence my path of be/coming an artist and educator?
To this point in my journal entries I have made art visuals using 2D methods, so going into this week’s submission, I knew I wanted to do something 3D. I was inspired by thinking about the creative process and how art making can impact different areas of a person’s life. I believe the sentiment also holds true within the art room, through the harmonious use of multiple studio art disciplines.
During my coursework as an art student, I felt a strong division between different materials and how they were used. For instance, when my teachers would assign a drawing project it was very drawing specific. It generally focused on the art and design principles most strongly associated with the medium, generally through portraiture, figure drawing, still life or landscape. Then, when we transitioned into another medium, like sculpture, ceramics, or wheel throwing, the lesson shifted again to highlight the key points of that discipline. This carried on into pinhole cameras, photography, painting, etc.
I understand why my instructors made such a clear distinction, it was to introduce students to a wide variety of mediums in a relatively short amount of time, and making separation between each could help the students form associations with how each method is generally used. I felt influence of this teaching method most through the middle grades and high school.
However, in college and currently in my teaching practice I noticed that there was an effort to promote the eclectic use of understanding all mediums, and how they can improve one’s process in multiple areas. My teaching philosophy strongly aligns with this notion, and I truly take as much influence from sculpted works, ceramics, collages, fiber designs, fashion, jewelry, photography, as I do from drawings and paintings.
In a lot of ways however, I still feel like many of my current students and peers have tuned-out from certain mediums they feel less skilled in or don’t enjoy intrinsically as much as others. I believe this is not a problem with them, but with the systemic carry-over from the clear distinctions made between each medium in their middle grades and high school learning.
Therefore moving forward, I would like to provide opportunities in my future lesson plans to show how in most art professions, working artists use multiple mediums harmoniously to create even better products. I believe an activity like the one I engaged in, for this week’s visual requirement, highlights a fun lesson idea for middle grades or high school students that teaches how one can utilize multiple mediums in one assignment, to become a stronger and more well-rounded artist overall.
In the first image on the left, I created an original (2D) character design. In the remaining images, I modeled that same character in clay. I then took that clay rendering and put a direct light source onto it from various angles.
This is a technique commonly used by character designers for video games, television, and movies. It is done to discover how light and shadows will accurately conform to the shape of the character. When making a cartoon character, the form is generally abstracted and it is hard to replicate accurately how light would interact with its total form... Unless you create a 3D model and actually test it! From this point I could take the knowledge I learned about the interplay of light and form on my character, and create much more dynamic drawings of it, that show an accurate sense of these artistic principles working together.
What events/moments/personal experiences change or refine my past perspective to look at art teaching and learning now?
What current learning or art education theories do I learn related to this change or revision?
How does my art piece (or the process of making this art piece) represent this change or revision?
How does my current understanding influence my path of be/coming an artist and educator?
To this point in my journal entries I have made art visuals using 2D methods, so going into this week’s submission, I knew I wanted to do something 3D. I was inspired by thinking about the creative process and how art making can impact different areas of a person’s life. I believe the sentiment also holds true within the art room, through the harmonious use of multiple studio art disciplines.
During my coursework as an art student, I felt a strong division between different materials and how they were used. For instance, when my teachers would assign a drawing project it was very drawing specific. It generally focused on the art and design principles most strongly associated with the medium, generally through portraiture, figure drawing, still life or landscape. Then, when we transitioned into another medium, like sculpture, ceramics, or wheel throwing, the lesson shifted again to highlight the key points of that discipline. This carried on into pinhole cameras, photography, painting, etc.
I understand why my instructors made such a clear distinction, it was to introduce students to a wide variety of mediums in a relatively short amount of time, and making separation between each could help the students form associations with how each method is generally used. I felt influence of this teaching method most through the middle grades and high school.
However, in college and currently in my teaching practice I noticed that there was an effort to promote the eclectic use of understanding all mediums, and how they can improve one’s process in multiple areas. My teaching philosophy strongly aligns with this notion, and I truly take as much influence from sculpted works, ceramics, collages, fiber designs, fashion, jewelry, photography, as I do from drawings and paintings.
In a lot of ways however, I still feel like many of my current students and peers have tuned-out from certain mediums they feel less skilled in or don’t enjoy intrinsically as much as others. I believe this is not a problem with them, but with the systemic carry-over from the clear distinctions made between each medium in their middle grades and high school learning.
Therefore moving forward, I would like to provide opportunities in my future lesson plans to show how in most art professions, working artists use multiple mediums harmoniously to create even better products. I believe an activity like the one I engaged in, for this week’s visual requirement, highlights a fun lesson idea for middle grades or high school students that teaches how one can utilize multiple mediums in one assignment, to become a stronger and more well-rounded artist overall.
In the first image on the left, I created an original (2D) character design. In the remaining images, I modeled that same character in clay. I then took that clay rendering and put a direct light source onto it from various angles.
This is a technique commonly used by character designers for video games, television, and movies. It is done to discover how light and shadows will accurately conform to the shape of the character. When making a cartoon character, the form is generally abstracted and it is hard to replicate accurately how light would interact with its total form... Unless you create a 3D model and actually test it! From this point I could take the knowledge I learned about the interplay of light and form on my character, and create much more dynamic drawings of it, that show an accurate sense of these artistic principles working together.