Advanced Placement Studio Art: Drawing

Career Center – Ms. Toni Graves

Email:

Contact #: 336-727-8181

Advanced Placement Drawing Class Overview

All students that come into the program are required to have had two levels of high school art at their home schools, but many others have had much more exposure to art by taking summer camps or being mentored by local artists throughout the year. We are in a unique situation in that our students come to our school specifically to take classes that are not offered at their home schools. We accommodate 15 different area high schools which I feel creates a unique atmosphere of experiential, academic, and socioeconomic diversity that most students do not normally encounter.

The AP Studio Art program is designed for highly motivated high school students that wish to work and excel in a college level environment. The Drawing Portfolio is designed to address a broad interpretation of drawing issues. For example, painting, printmaking, some forms of design, and abstract and observational works. AP students will prepare their portfolios during the year through organized AP instruction exploring many issues, concepts, and ideas including but not limited to line, value, texture, medium, composition, and craftsmanship. Each student will create a body of work that will be submitted to the national AP College Board for evaluation for potential college credit.

Advanced Placement Studio Art classes are demanding of time and quality expectations. It is a very enriching experience and thoroughly prepares students for the rigors of college.

Instructional Goals:

  • Encourage creative as well as systematic investigation of formal and conceptual issues.
  • Emphasize making art as an ongoing process that involves the student in informed and critical decision-making.
  • Develop technical skills and familiarize with the functions of the visual elements.
  • Encourage students to become independent thinkers who will contribute inventively and critically to their culture through the making of art.
  • Students will analyze and discuss artwork in a group and individual critiques.

The following expectations apply:

  • AP courses are college-level courses with college level rigor and expectations.
  • AP courses require a much larger commitment of time and energy.
  • For each AP course taken, the student must be prepared to spend a minimum of one hour a day, 5 days a week on work outside of class.
  • Students must accept personal responsibility for their own learning by meeting deadlines, keeping up with current assignments, and seeking extra help if necessary to succeed. One project should be completed each week and will be due on Monday of the next week. Your work should be finished and ready for classroom presentation and critique at the beginning of class on Monday.
  • Students must be willing to accept the challenge of learning in new ways.
  • Students must be committed to their AP course for the entire year.
  • Students are required to take the AP course at the end of the year or their final grade will be lowered by one letter.

Assignments:

The assignments for the first semester will be teacher directed. Expect approximately 16 projects. During second semester, students will work independently on a body of work, “concentration”. This body of work must have a theme with visual coherence. There will be approximately 14 -16 projects in each semester that must show growth as an artist and innovation through technique and concept exploration.

AP Exam:

In late April, students will register for the AP Exam. Students will be required to photograph their artwork, edit, and upload these to the College Board website to submit for a score. Optional college credit for the Advanced Placement Art Portfolio is not through a written exam, but through this National AP Portfolio evaluation which is based on the 24 images of their artwork, and the 5 pieces we choose from those to mail to College Board to be scored in person.

Physical Requirements for the AP Drawing Portfolio Exam:

SECTION I: Quality -Five actual drawings showing mastery of materials, technique and concept; maximum size is 18" x 24"
SECTION II: Concentration - 12 slides of a Body of Work that all pieces have a coherent theme or underlying idea or exploration; some may be details
SECTION III: Breadth - 12 slides of 12 different works that each shows understanding of a variety of techniques, use of materials and concept; one slide of each is submitted

Grading and Attendance:

Work is graded on technical aspects of the assignment, quality of presentation, originality, and creativity. Five points will be deducted for each week a project is late. A “0” will be recorded for failure to turn in an assignment. Not participating in a critique will result in a five-point deduction of your project grade. Attendance is essential and parental notes are required the following day afteran absence. Major projects are 60%, class participation is 20%, and homework/sketchbook/other is 20% of the final grade.

Grading Scale: 90 – 100 A

80 – 89B

70 – 79C

60 – 69D

0 – 59F

Required Supply List:

  • Sketchbook (9” x 12”)
  • 1” Three ring binder (For assignment sheets, evaluation sheets and other handouts throughout the year)
  • Portfolio for transporting work (at least 22” x 28”)

In addition, there will be a $15.00 supply fee which will cover the cost of providing the student with pencils, erasers, brushes, a palette and a drawing board that are theirs to take home.

Optional Supply List:This list represents a small portion of materials that will be used during the school year. Most other materials will be provided by the school.

  • Colored Pencils Set (Prismacolor preferred – more pencils allows for more color options)
  • Graphite Drawing Pencils (HB, 2B, 4B, 6B)
  • #2 Pencil, eraser, and hand held sharpener with cover
  • Medium and fine tip black permanent marker
  • Xacto knife and blades (For use at home. Xacto’s may not be checked out from school)

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Originality and Integrity:
Copying work in any medium without significant and substantial manipulation is an infringement on the original artist's rights and can constitute plagiarism. Students become knowledgeable about copyright laws through group discussion and citations of specific instances where copyright infringements have been legally handled (i.e.…Disney)

While the use of appropriated images is common in the professional art world today, many colleges and art schools continue to stress strongly the value of working from direct observation. Since they aspire to college-level work, AP students who make use of borrowed images must demonstrate a creativity and sophistication of approach that transcends mere copying. This policy is clearly stated on the AP Studio Art poster:

If you submit work which makes use of photographs, published images, and/or other artists' works, you must show development beyond duplication. This may be demonstrated through manipulation of the material(s), formal qualities, design, and/or concept of the original work. It is unethical, constitutes plagiarism, and often violates copyright law to simply copy an image (even in another medium) that was made by someone else.

In evaluating portfolios, the Readers look for original thinking. Students are encouraged to create artworks from their own knowledge, experiences, and interests. Each week during our group critiques, students are orally given the opportunity to explain their concepts and intentions in their work. They are required and graded on their artistic process which includes a predetermined concept, research and discovery based around this concept, preliminary sketches created from imagination, found images or personal photography, and a finished piece. If copyright protected images seem to have been used, students must show the full context in which they were used before and then explain how they manipulated and developed those images beyond duplication.

An assignment is given at the beginning of the year that requires students to research the universities, colleges, and professional schools of art that they are interested in attending and finding out what their policy is on copyright and plagiarism. Most institutions have rigorous policies regarding plagiarism so once the students see that these actions will not be accepted in their school of choice, they are typically deterred from engaging in any dishonest artistic endeavors.

The AP Studio Art program endorses these policies so I wish to make it very clear that my classes also will strongly endorse them as well. Work with simple duplication of plagiarized images will not be accepted and will be given a “0”. In addition, students will be subject to school board policies regarding cheating.

Breadth:

The Advanced Placement Art program at our school is split into two specific semesters of work. During the first semester, each class focuses on the Breadth section of the portfolio while during the second semester we focus mainly on the Concentration section of the portfolio. In the end, the quality section of the portfolio is chosen from the body of work that is the result of both sections together at the end of the year. The breadth section during the first semester consists of teacher-lead assignments that introduce the students to experiences with new and different materials and techniques. It is also a time when students begin to develop a vocabulary for explaining their experiences, processes and intentions in their work. They are given the opportunity to express themselves during a weekly critique which can be either a personally reflective self-critique or a peer discussion, teacher lead group critique. Both allow the students to write and speak in and educated manner about their work while at the same time learning how to accept constructive criticism and positive feedback.

Some of the issues involving exploration and understanding of the basic elements and principles of art and design students will experience are as follows:

  • Materials, Tools and Techniques of Drawing
  • Training the Hand and Eye
  • Subjective and Objective Drawing
  • Learning to see; gesture and contour drawing
  • Understanding Space: Positive and Negative Spatial Effects on the Picture Plane
  • Descriptive and Expressive Uses of Value
  • Understanding Line Quality; Descriptive and Expressive Uses of Line
  • Textures Role in Art and Design
  • Creating a Visual Vocabulary

Concentration:

During the second semester, students are involved in the exploration of a single concept or theme for their entire body of work. This is an opportunity for them to really define themselves creatively and conceptually. The Concentration section during the second semester consists of assignments that introduce the students to experiences with new and different materials and techniques while at the same time allows them to choose the appropriate materials and approaches best suited to accomplish their conceptual intentions. Similar to the Breadth section of the year, the Concentration is also a time when students develop and refine their vocabulary for explaining the experiences, processes and intentions in their work. They are given the opportunity to express themselves during a weekly critique which can be either a personally reflective self-critique or a peer discussion, teacher lead group critique. Both allow the students to write and speak in and educated manner about their work while at the same time learning how to accept constructive criticism and positive feedback.

Examples and demonstrations of new and different techniques are introduced weekly throughout the second semester to provide students with more options of material, technique and approach in their pieces.

Quality:

After completing both Breadth and Concentration sections, five of the most successful pieces from the year are selected to represent students’ best efforts in technical and conceptual areas. The five pieces are selected based of excellence of composition, concept and craftsmanship. These five pieces are used to fulfill the Quality section of the portfolio.

Homework:

As in any college-level course, it is expected that students will spend a considerable amount of time outside the classroom working on completion of assignments. Ideas for projects, planning,and solutions to problems should be worked out in a sketchbook outside of class. Research and any reference images used for a project should be in the sketchbook also. The sketchbook is an essential tool for recording ideas, practice, capturing visual information, working on compositional issues, and just fooling around. Homework assignments will be given to be executed in the sketchbook as well.

Sketchbook:

All students are expected to keep a sketchbook from the first day of school. This gives them a platform for research and development, as well as revision of ideas before final pieces are begun. The artistic process for each piece is required and a documentation of that process is checked during each critique or at the completion of each assignment. The AP Art grading rubric includes a strong emphasis on artistic process/planning which should include successful use of the sketchbook for preliminary studies, sketches and compilation of images and references for conceptual development. There will also be sketchbook assignments that allow students to hone their skills and perpetuate the creative process. Sketchbooks are checked frequently for progress.

Additional Information:

Students are expected to follow all WSFCS and Career Center policies and regulations. Career Center outlines these in a Student Handbook, concerning dress code, electronics use, attendance, absence notes, grades, conduct, and more. It is essential that you familiarize yourself with our rules. The handbook is available on our website under Quick Links. The WSFC school system has additional policies available on their website. I recommend you make yourself aware of all that is expected of a student in WSFCS.

Even more…

Former students write suggestions for future students when they leave class at the end of the year. Here is some of their sage advice:

Do not procrastinate.

Go to class and be on time.

Use your class time wisely.

Don’t get behind, it will kill you!

Make sure you can handle the work in and out of class.

Be willing to experiment with different media.

Spread out your work instead of waiting until the last night to do it.

Prepare to work!

Stay on task.

Though it has been a lot of work, AP Art has helped push me to improve more and faster than any other art class. I feel like I view the creative process differently now.

Keep up! Work at home a little every day.

Research improves your project.

Be open to criticism of your work.

Be organized.

Don’t slack off!

Planning is worth your time!