SUGGESTED SUMMER ASSIGNMENTS TO KEEP UP ON YOUR SKILLS and TO GET A HEAD START ON YOUR PORTFOLIO.

PART1: Your Own Theme and Style (scroll down for PART2 for more specific topics and criteria)

Choose a topic of your own and begin to create work in your own style and media of choice. This coming school year you will be required to select a theme and subject area to investigate and create art about. Experimenting with various themes and subject matters over the summer when you don’t have the pressure of deadlines is an excellent use of your time. I recommend you scroll through some of the broad theme suggestions on the link found on our class homepage as well as some of the suggested themes seen here, these can be a good starting point and spring board to launch your yearlong sustained investigation. There are also skill building tutorial links on our class homepage. Keep in mind, we do less skills work in AP than in Fundamentals classes, so please take time this summer to work on improving and keeping up on your skills.

PART2: PROJECT IDEAS

I’VE ALSO INCLUDED THE FOLLOWING PROJECT IDEAS FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT PREFER MORE SPECIFIC CRITERIA TO WORK FROM:

1. A STILL LIFE ARRANGEMENT OF OBJECTS REPRESENTING MEMBERS OF YOUR FAMILY: Perhaps a favorite toy or pair of shoes etc. You must have at least 3 objects and use an unusual viewpoint or angle.  

  2. 3 EGGS OR 3 APPLES: Set up a traditional still-life with 3 chicken eggs or apples on rumpled cloth. Use a strong light source near a window or a lamp. Compose the entire page. Size: larger than 5x7inches  Medium: pencil, chalk, pastel, colored pencil, marker, pen or paint  

3. CORNER OF A ROOM: Create an accurate perspective drawing of a corner of a room, including the parts of yourself that you can see.  Size: larger than 5x7inches Paper:drawing paper 

Medium: colored Pencils, charcoal, graphite drawing pencil or pens  

4.  LANDSCAPE COLLAGE.  Make a collage of a landscape, which has some outdoor wilderness qualities like trees, flowers, plants, river, mountain etc.  Cut and tear papers of various textures and colors to create a sense of dimension. 

Use shadow areas. These papers could consist of magazine color swatches, sections of sample water paintings, wallpaper, or photographs you’ve taken. 

  5. LIQUID AS DESIGN.  

Taking Motivation from any liquid form, create a composition, which demonstrates the scientific characteristics of liquid; flowing, dripping, puddles, pouring. Be sure to make the liquid element dominate the composition. Do not allow containers or other items to crowd the setting. If available, use dark color paper with any color media. If not, any media will be fine.  

6. LANDSCAPE SERIES- Same Spot-Different Time.  Check out Claude Monet’s haystacks at: http://www.puc-rio.br/wm/paint/auth/monet/haystacks/ Why did Monet literally paint the same haystacks over and over again? He even begged the farmer who badly wanted to use the hay, not to move them. To under understand the beauty of color, reflection, and light, get up early and examine the colors of one outdoor object. It can be a shed, a compost pile, some bushes, Examine that same thing three hours later, then three hours later. Something that appeared black in the morning, then can look purple, then blue, then gold. These changes can occur all in the same day, depending upon weather and seasonal conditions. Create series of at least three paintings or drawings of the same scene at different times of the day depicting the actual colors that moment. 

 7.  PORTRAIT CONCEPTS:  All pencil, colored pencil, charcoal, or pastel drawings must use a 10-point value scale with a wide range of strong darks and lights. Strong lighting can be used to achieve this dramatic effect. Painting is also acceptable, no digital work at this time please.  

*Self-portrait with at least 5 distinct changes in expression.  *Draw the person using an arrangement of drawings on one page that range from the whole body to blow-ups of small details.  

 *Draw from unusual angles, so that significant changes in form take place due to foreshortening.  

 *Draw a face created by clumping together vegetables. See the work of the artist: Arcimbolo.  

*Experiment with Lighting: hold a flashlight to create dramatic shading- great contrasts in light or dark.  

*Integrate a particular person’s face into a pattern or design.  

* Using markers, prismacolors, oil pastels or some other color drawing material, draw the same portrait twice, but use two different color schemes. (ie: warm, cool, monochromatic, analogous, primary or secondary 

 *Graph sections of the portrait and color or shade only certain sections.  

*Draw a portrait using only directional (all strokes going in the same direction) or vertical strokes. See the work of Renaissance artists like Michelangelo or Leonardo DaVinci. *Create a portrait starting with the background first. Use toned paper, newspaper or magazines, and gesso, then drybrush ink onto the surface to create details.  

 *Draw a portrait with hands involved: brushing hair, reading a book, sitting on a chair backwards with the hands in front.  

*Use the portrait to make a comment on society by including appropriate background or other figures.  

 *Portrait emerging from robes or wrapping.