Art at Benilde-St. Margaret's: April 2013

Friday, April 12, 2013

Painting I: Landscape and Pattern

To begin our next assignment, Painting I students looked at different artists who paint in landscapes while using pattern to create parts of the foreground, middle ground, or background. Artists such as Gustav Klimt, David Hockney, Grant Wood, and Emily Carr were examples we looked at. Of course, each student could go in any direction of hyper-realistic to more expressive or abstract. See their choices below!

Abby Moroz, 9th grade

Alyssa Borsch, 9th grade

Amanda Kautzer, 9th grade

Anna Von Kampen

Bailey Johnson, 9th grade

Emma Froseth, 9th grade

Kim Pollard, 9th grade

Sarah Letcher, 9th grade

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Painting II: Gesture and Emotion

In hopes of acquiring some figure drawing skills, the Painting II students were given an assignment that used figure to convey emotion -- without using the face to support that emotion. The students were asked to find a way to show how the person was feeling based on how the figure held their body. Actions can speak louder than words sometimes (or faces)!

Anna McGinn, 11th grade

Kaylee Druk, 10th grade

Jacqui Theisen, 10th grade

Everett Waldon, 10th grade

Samantha Ochs, 10th grade

Emma VanderHeide, 10th grade

Painting II: Minnesota Landscape

Painting II was assigned to paint a familiar landscape -- a scene from Minnesota. If not Minnesota, at least a midwest landscape. The only other requirement was something brand new. The students would be painting in oil. I think I converted a few of them to oil paint for good!

Shannon O'Connor, 10th grade

Albi Beaird, 12th grade

Anna McGinn, 11th grade

Everett Waldon, 10th grade

Lexi Press, 12th grade

Jacqui Thiesen, 10th grade

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

AP Painting: Concentrations

We're getting close to AP portfolio submissions and the Painting students concentrations are coming together nicely! Check out the first few:

Franny Peck:

Antigua, Guatemala

Dana Buckhorn: Ideal Body

Maggie Langford: Vision Quest

Mackenzie Matthews: Meat

Jenny Krane: Portraits

Friday, April 5, 2013

Painting I: Realism to Abstraction

The Painting 1 students were assigned to find a chair at home, take a photo and bring it into class to paint.

From the photo, they looked for a strong composition (does it run off the page, is it an unconventional angle, does it fill the frame...?) and painted it as close to life as they could in watercolor. For the second painting, and to better understand the transition into abstraction, we looked at examples of Piet Mondrian. His development into abstraction was built on many paintings and drawings originally done very realistically.

The students then looked at their own chairs and decided how they wanted to abstract and develop their chair paintings. Did they just want to change the color? Did they want to exaggerate the shapes? Is there a pattern on the chair they wanted to continue painting? Their method and extent of abstraction was limitless. See if you can follow what they were thinking from their original painting to their developed and abstracted chair.