Student Artwork
In my art classes we think deeply about the creative process. We focus on developing both technical skills and an ability to create personally meaningful work. I push students to explore all manner of media; by combining traditional practice with innovative tools, students may see themselves as both artists and innovators.
Below you will find a few selected projects from a variety of my traditional art, as well as photography and digital media classes.
IB Visual Art
Independent Exploration
IB Visual Art requires students to explore, experiment, take risks, and push themselves in the development of their own personally developed body of work. Below are some of the results of this exploration.
Photography
Light Painting
Light painting was a popular project in my photography classes, as it represented a surprising juxtaposition of careful planning and surprising results. Using long shutter speed photography, students would use various light producing tools to reveal hidden mysteries about the subjects they photographed. Light painting became one of the key projects of The Student Creative and is the subject of my chapter in the upcoming Davis Publications textbook Exploring Visual Design.
Advanced & AP Photography
Portfolio Books
In their second year of our photography sequence students in the Advanced/AP photography course put together a portfolio of their work based on a theme & topic that they investigated over the period of a few months. With each project, the students pushed their ideas in different directions which culminated in an exhibition as well as a personal book that we published. We made copies for students as well as for our school library. Students also participated in The Student Creative challenges; these were photography challenges set up by my fellow Adobe Education Leaders Mike Skocko, Matt Cauthron, and I. Students contributed photos from classes around the world for books that we created and donated proceeds to the Jacaranda School in Malawi. You can read more about that project here.
Animation
Over the course of my career, I have taught animation as a course, a stand-alone unit in my film and art classes, and as an interdisciplinary project. At right. you will find examples of each iteration of those ideas. The Rotoball project, featured here, became an international collaborative project that involved more than 20 schools and 1000 students over the course of 10 years. You can read more about that project here.
Animation
Animation
Crosswalks
Meiosis
Rotoball One
Foundations Art
"Personal Perspective Towers"
This lesson for 9th grade students playfully addresses the idea of 'perspective' from two angles (pun intended). It is both a 3 point perspective drawing lesson as well as a tower that represents the students' experience based on imagery that they consider as foundational (again, intended) to who they are, and from what vantage point (sorry if this isn't your type of humor) they see the world. The final result shows perspective from the students... perspective.
