Teens and Trees

We had a long winter break in my teen Art and Design class and are just getting going again. Here are a few pictures of one of the projects from last term. We were studying shape and visual texture. They had to design a stylized tree, simplifying its shapes, and cut it out of foam core. They then covered it with black and white or neutral magazine pages that showed strong visual texture. (As you may notice with any assignments I give, there are always some rule breakers, and I'm fine with that.) They could then add pops of color if they wanted.

The trees are designed to be free standing and are just spectacular that way. I had to lay them on the floor for a few quick photos as we ran out the door and wish I had better background colors to make them pop, but I think you can still see how great they turned out.

Here are a few of them:

They are such a talented group--it is a thrill to watch them create! You can see some of their earlier assignments here.

Art and Design Class

I used to teach quite a few art classes for all different ages, and I stopped a few years ago to take a break. I've had this one particular class in mind for some time though, so I was really excited when the opportunity came up to teach an Art and Design class for teens. I love working with this age group because they are highly creative and old enough to be able to take on challenging work.

This is such a fun class for me because I've been gathering examples from the design world--fashion, architecture, comics, video game design, etc. to illustrate art principles. Gives me a fresh perspective on things.

And the students' work is inspiring!

Here are some of the results from a negative space exercise I gave. Students start with a 6" black square, cut out shapes and flip them onto a white background.

The next 2 started with a black rectangle.

For the first two weeks, we worked on an exercise on finding variety within limitations. Starting with a leaf shape, they cut no more than 5 straight lines out of it.

Then the next week they repeated the exercise using curved lines.

They really astound me with the range of ideas they can come up with!