The Shape of Art

We had a lot of fun in our ATC class this past week. Following are some fine examples of miniature, tradable art . . .

Morgan and Anais collaborated to create the ATCs featured above. Pretty clever, huh?

Valencia made this beautifully detailed ATC featuring a woman in a long dress. It reminds me of a sari. 

And the trading card below was made by Cameron. He put lots of detail into his card, which was the main assignment!

In Explorations in Art, we continued building on our knowledge of the principles and elements of art. This past week we discussed shape. Students took a tour through Miss Robin's Art Gallery to view and discuss a number of famous works. We identified the prominent shapes in each work.

For instance, we noted that Grant Wood's Stone City, Iowa (above) is mostly made up of circles and ovals! Several students also pointed out Wood's use of organic shapes.

Paul Gauguin's The Vision After the Sermon was also found to be composed of many organic shapes, which is in sharp contrast to the following, highly geometric work by Shaikh-zada of Khurasan, titled Bahrom Gur in the Turquoise Pavilion.

In addition to shape, we discussed perspective. Students critiqued the use (and non-use!) of perspective in all the works featured in the gallery. And, for good measure, I threw in this brain-teasing work by Salvador Dali. The young artists enjoyed picking out the hidden images, and shifting their gaze between objects which appeared to change before their eyes!

Ceramics I students began work on spirit balls, while the advanced ceramics students continued work on their independent art projects.