11/29/12 2D Design

Today's Class-  Tonight we started a new graded project involving mixed media collage.  I showed a few slides of historical collages through the 20th century, as well as student examples of this project.  A random process was used to come up with the subjects, after which students used all the materials from the semester to create visuals of those subjects.  We also took a few minutes to finally have a brief critique of the wood cut projects.

How to make this up-  This project borrows two aspects of the Dada movement, the use of collage and the use of random elements to create art.  You will need a randomly generated phrase to be your subject.  I had students pick slips of paper with words printed on them out of two bags, one with nouns, one with modifying words and phrases.  If you weren't there tonight, you can either e-mail me and have me pick a phrase for you, or wait until next week's class and pick it yourself.  Then you will create a mixed media collage about your random phrase.  The piece must include collaged elements (magazines, etc), painted elements, and drawn (pencils, markers) elements, along with the phrase that you drew from the bags.  The student examples shown here are City of Zoo (above) and Everything Turns to Thinking (below).  Several more good student examples, as well as more details about this project, can be seen here.

Homework-  This mixed media collage graded project is due at the beginning of class on December 13, 2012.  

The limited palettes color studies project that we began at our last class meeting is due December 6, 2012.

Anyone who still hasn't had their wood block printed should bring it in as soon as possible to receive partial credit.

For next class 12/6/12-  We will have a critique of the limited palettes project and then start our final project of the semester.  The project will involve making use of elements taken from the work of a historical fine artist (someone found in major museums and art history textbooks) from the 20th century or earlier.  The artist must work in two dimensions (painting, drawing, prints), and use full color and representational imagery (no total abstraction).  If you have an artist that you'd like to work with, bring color images with you to class.  If not, consider a book covering a particular style, culture, or subject, and narrow it down later.  Also bring your 18" x 24" pad, pencil and eraser, and all your painting related materials.