From the about section of Letterheady:
Letterheady
–adjective
1. overcome by a strong emotion due to a letterhead design.
Hello,
Much like its sibling, Letters of Note, Letterheady is an online homage to offline correspondence; specifically letters. However, here at Letterheady we don’t care about the letter’s content. Just its design. Click here to submit any letterheads you feel are worthy of exposure. Alternatively, email me the details.
Regards,
Shaun
This week the Photography One students will be completing Nina Katchadourian‘s assignment from the PBS web series The Art Assignment.
1. Choose a person you know or would like to know better
2. Take a look at/through their library
3. Make 3 stacks of books to develop a portrait of the person
4. Upload it to your social media platform of choice using #theartassignment
5. Fame and glory (your work might be featured in a future episode)
Learn more about Nina’s work: http://www.ninakatchadourian.com/
And read about William S. Burroughs: http://www.burroughs100.com/
Steve McCurry is an American editorial photographer best known for his photograph “Afghan Girl” which originally appeared in National Geographic magazine.
Diane Arbus
Andreas Feininger
Man Ray
Self-Portrait with Half Beard, 1943
Gelatin silver print, 7 1/8 x 5 1/8 inches
Nan Goldin
Chuck Close
Feelings are often difficult to deal with, and communicating them is even harder.
While researching short videos on emotional intelligence to share with my 2nd Graders during our Expressionist unity I found this brief PBS Parents video.
The video explores a journaling/sketchbook technique to develop and foster social and emotional intelligence with your children, students, and self.
Arts.mic or Mic.com just published an interesting article on art’s effect on the human brain. Some of the highlights of the article were that “experiencing art decreases stress levels” and that “the brain is hardwired to process art.” The article also noted that the biggest benefits come from actually producing art.
“Along with the perks of enjoying and experiencing art, there are real-world benefits to making the art with your own two hands. According to a 2014 study, producing visual art improved psychological resilience and increased brain activity for the participants by the end of the experiment.
The study had two groups of recent retirees. One group was given lessons by an art educator and the participants actively created pieces of visual art that displayed their own personal form of artistic expression. The other group was treated more like a discussion class, where they talked about and interpreted selected paintings and sculptures. Both groups had their brains scanned before and after the period of courses.
The brain scans of the two groups before the classes (T0) and after 10 weeks (T1).Source: Anne Bolwerk/PLOSOne
Of the two groups, the one that produced art reaped the neural benefit of increased connectivity in the brain’s default mode network over the ten weeks of art class. This area deals with cognitive process like introspection, self-monitoring and memory.
As Hyperallergic points out, the researchers speculate that the first group got the gains because of the combination of motor and cognitive processing. They state in the study, “The visual art production intervention involved the development of personal expression and attentional focus on self-related experience during art creation.” Utilizing motor skills and thinking about art together becomes more beneficial instead of doing either separately. “
Click the link below for the full article:
http://mic.com/articles/106504/science-shows-that-art-is-having-fantastic-effects-on-our-brains-and-bodies
Thought provoking article on the Chinese elementary school model, where every teacher is a specialist.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-pine/specialist-teachers-best-_b_1669799.html
If you’re interested in photography here are some great tips and tricks that can turn a basic cell phone camera into so much more.
http://www.lipstiq.com/others/7-photography-tricks-you-didnt-know-your-smartphone-can-do/
In a recent SPIN article REM frontman Michael Stripe is prompting students at NYU in a new collaborative project “NEW SIGHTS, NEW NOISE”.
“Each week, Stipe and a different special guest will give the class’ 18 students a prompt, and they’ll respond with ‘100 images and gifs, both found and made, all of which will be uploaded to a private class website,’ and projected on the walls, automatic for the people (sorry). At the end of the class, the space at 80 WSE Gallery will open up to the public so they can see what they accomplished.”
For more on the project check out the whole article:
http://www.spin.com/articles/michael-stipe-art-classes-teacher-nyu
Wouldn’t this be a fabulous project for a digital photography, digital media, or graphic design class?
“As part of a promotion for the Sydney International Food Festival, the advertising agency WHYBIN\TBWA designed 18 national flags using foods each country is commonly associated with and that would also match the colors of the flag.”
–http://www.thisismarvelous.com
Wouldn’t showing these be great way to help make connections between Art and Social Studies?
Can you guess which countries these flags belong to?
Click the link below to see them all!
For the past 35 years, Southern Coastal Maine art educators have been participating in a showcase of student work each year at the Barn Gallery in Ogunquit, ME. The following gallery is a quick taste of some of the amazing work in this year’s 2012-2013 show.
Students in the 2D/3D class at MassArt‘s Summer Studios program worked in small groups to create these installations in the Boston Fens. The pieces were inspired by the work of Andy Goldsworthy.
Students in MassArt’s Summer Studios program created these figure drawings while working from a live model.
Students in MassArt’s Summer Studios 2D/3D course created these wire figures while working from a live model.
Students combined various animals to create their own mythical creatures out of clay.
After studying the work of Romare Bearden students created collages that addressed many of the social issues we are dealing with in America today.
Some of the issues addressed were: prescription drug abuse, war in the Middle East, the portrayal of women in the media, and the loss of childhood innocence
Students spent several classes creating figure studies of other students playing Twister. They then incorporated one of their figures into their psychedelic artwork based on the work of Peter Max. To get into the “groove” we listened to music by: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, and Jefferson Airplane.
For the Still Life unit students in my Drawing I classes created a still-life a day, with each day being an introduction to a new media.
Some of the mediums we covered were: charcoal, sumi-ink, soft pastel, and graphite.
Documents:
Cubism and the Figure Lesson Plan
Each student in my Studio II class was given a 1″x1″ black and white image to enlarge on a 4″x4″ square using colored tape. Unaware of the image as a whole, students had to consider scale, and positive and negative space to create their individual squares. Once each student had finished we pieced the mat board squares together to create this image of Martin Luther King Jr.
This group drawing was created using charcoal and a reference image from National Geographic during MassArt’s Summer Studios 2D/3D class.
Students in my Dark Room Photography class went into color with this photomontage project.
Students in my Drawing II classes worked on the “Paint for Peace” project which was started by Boston-based artist Robert Charles Guillemin, better know as Sidewalk Sam. The project which first started on the streets of Boston is aimed to promote peace, as well as to curb youth violence in the Boston area. My students worked together in small groups stenciling doves in front of each outside door of Lowell High School. Each dove has a purple banner underneath it which reads “Stop Violence-Create Peace.”
This project empowered students to create peace in our community while also adding to the aesthetic appeal of our campus.
Thank you to Sidewalk Sam, ArtStreet Inc., and the City of Lowell for enabling us to make this happen.
Working with students and teachers in the disciplines of Dance and Studio Art in the Fine Arts Academy of Lowell High School, Lowell, MA, my Studio II students used the Japanese surface design technique of Shibori to create this backdrop for the Fall Dance Performance.
The concept behind the performance was “Color Theory.”
Students in my Studio II class worked with students in the Dance I class to create these moving images. The Dance I students held Christmas lights while they danced and Studio II students snapped away capturing the images using a slow shutter speed.
The images were then printed and pieced together to create a mural in an empty store front in Downtown Lowell.
