Visual arts classes introduce students to the key skills, concepts, and studio art disciplines that are basic to the development of their creative expression and visual literacy. In the elementary years, the focus is on exploration and experimentation. In the middle school years students learn the essential skills of each art discipline. The high school provides a foundation in classical and modern methods of drawing, painting, graphic design, and sculpture which gives students the insights and abilities to undertake more advanced works in these areas of concentration and build their portfolios. From K-12, Visual Arts emphasizes the following intellectual skills:
- Methods, Materials, and Techniques
- Elements and Principles of Design
- Observation & Abstraction
- Critical Response & Exhibiting
- Stylistic Influence and Expression
Building on techniques learned in Drawing/Painting I, this course provides students with the opportunity for advanced study in representational art. With a sustained focus on naturalism and observation, students create work in a variety of major genres that include human and animal figure studies, landscapes, and portraits. An emphasis is placed on situating figures in environments in order to create more complex compositions.
Units:
- Unit 1: Landscapes
- Unit 2: Perspective: Houses & Interiors
- Unit 3: Portrait Painting
- Unit 4: Drawing Plants and Animals
- Unit 5: Comics and Cartooning
Subject: Drawing & Painting II / Grade: 11-12 / Suggested Timeline: 9 weeks
Unit Title: Landscape Drawing and Painting
Unit Overview/Essential Understanding: Students will develop paintings that reflect an understanding of contemporary and historical landscape paintings. Working en plein air as well as from reference, they will
Unit Objectives:
Students will: work en plein air (directly from nature)
Develop proficiency in glazing, impasto, underpainting
Employ color theory, rhythm, linear perspective and atmospheric perspective
Draw and paint trees, water, rocks, clouds, skies using a variety of techniques
Create studies in the style of great landscape artists
Focus Standards Addressed in this Unit:
9.1.12.A: Know and use the elements and principles of each art form to create works in the arts and humanities.
9.1.12.C: Integrate and apply advanced vocabulary to the arts forms.
9.1.12.E: Delineate a unifying theme through the production of a work of art that reflects skills in media processes and techniques.
9.3.12.C: Apply systems of classification for interpreting works in the arts and forming a critical response.
Important Standards Addressed in this Unit: n/a
Misconceptions:
Concepts/Content:
Value and rapid studies
Atmospheric Perspective
Foreground
Middle ground
Background
Basics of scenery drawing
Trees, foliage
Rocks, mountains
Clouds, skies
Water / Competencies/Skills:
Alla prima painting
Glazing
Washes and impasto
Underpainting / Description of Activities: Limited palette landscape painting, Full palette and underpainting with complementary colors, Landscape with distinct foreground, middle ground and background, landscape that includes body of water, master copy of landscape
Assessments:
Students will create a landscape based at least partially on working en plein air that incorporates the style of a master painter and includes a variety of painting techniques and natural objects.
Interdisciplinary Connections:
Art History
Biology
Earth Science
Environmental Science / Additional Resources:
Drawing Scenery, Jack Hamm
Landscape Painting, Albala
The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, Brooker
Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting, Carlson
Landscape Painting Inside and Out, MacPherson
Drawing Nature, Maltzman
Subject: Drawing & Painting 2 / Grade: 11-12 / Suggested Timeline: 3-4 weeks
Unit Title: Perspective Drawing: Houses and Interiors
Unit Overview/Essential Understanding:
The unit in perspective further develops an understanding of perspective drawing and its terminology. Students will create illustrations that use multiple perspectival views to convey a mood and depict a narrative.
Unit Objectives:
Students will:
Demonstrate an understanding of perspective terminology
Apply 1-point & 2-point perspective in the creation of an original work
Use perspective to construct a series of illustrations that tell a story
Study the work of children’s book illustrators such as: Edward Gorey, Charles Addams, Joseph Mugnaini
Focus Standards Addressed in this Unit:
9.1.12.B: Recognize, know, use and demonstrate a variety of appropriate arts elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the arts.
9.1.12.C: Integrate and apply advanced vocabulary to the arts forms.
Important Standards Addressed in this Unit:
CC.2.3.HS.A.1: Use geometric figures and their properties to represent transformations in the plane.
Misconceptions:
Horizon and horizon line is the same thing; there is always one vanishing point on the horizon line
Concepts/Content:
Pen and Ink Drawing
Horizon/horizon line
Vanishing point
1-point, 2-point, & 3-point perspective
Children’s book illustration / Competencies/Skills:
Render 1-point & 2-point perspective drawings of space and objects; Incorporating specific styles into an original composition; Research architecture and period décor; Use line, value, hatching, to evoke mood; Hatching with pens, Using brush pens / Description of Activities:
Observation drawing of space in 1-point & 2-point; composition of a downhill or uphill view; still life drawing of objects in perspective; research on specific illustrators & period architecture
Assessments:
Students will create a series of illustrations that describe an imaginary house (student-created or based on literature), its interior, exterior and environs, drawing on the style of a specific illustrator.
Interdisciplinary Connections:
Geometry / Additional Resources:
Perspective Made Easy, Norling
Subject:Drawing & Painting II / Grade: 11-12 / Suggested Timeline:9 weeks
UnitTitle: Portrait Painting
Unit Overview/Essential Understanding:
This unit builds on the skills acquired in Drawing the Head, translating pencil/charcoal compositions to paint/color. Training the artists’ sensibilities through traditional painting skills, the unit will cover the Old Master techniques of great painters, the basics of working with acrylics, and working from reference to create original works of both portraiture and illustration.
Unit Objectives:
Students will
Demonstrate mastery of tools and techniques in acrylic portrait painting
Demonstrate the ability to portray emotions and personality through the rendering of physical characteristics
Create artwork that demonstrates understanding of the elements of design in establishing a point of view, a sense of space, and a mood
Apply procedures for safe and proper maintenance of the workspace, materials, and tools
Create original works of illustration
Focus Standards Addressed in this Unit:
9.1.12.B: Recognize, know, use and demonstrate a variety of appropriate arts elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the arts.
9.1.12.D: Demonstrate specific styles in combination through the production or performance of a unique work of art
9.1.12.E: Delineate a unifying theme through the production of a work of art that reflects skills in media processes and techniques.
9.1.12.H: Incorporate the effective and safe use of materials, equipment, and tools into the production of works in the arts.
Important Standards Addressed in this Unit:
9.1.12.F: Analyze works of arts influenced by experiences or historical and cultural events through production, performance or exhibition.
Misconceptions:Lack of understanding re: the differences between painting & photography, reliance on unmixed color, improper care of brushes
Concepts/Content:
Painting facial features
Painting the head frontally, in profile, and ¾ position
Acrylic painting technique
Monochrome painting
Using photo reference
Alla prima painting
Self portraits
Illustration work / Competencies/Skills:
Select a toned ground; block in the image; working alla prima vs establishing an underpainting; apply a working knowledge of painting techniques; replica photos in painted form; create original works of art based on specific criteria, using photo reference and imagination; maintaining/cleaning brushes, workstations, palettes / Description of Activities:
Students will create monochromatic studies of facial features and complete heads based on reference material; monochromatic paintings of a photographic portrait of an historical figure/self-portrait; clean and maintain their workstations (paint, brushes, palettes & easels); employ alla prima technique in rendering portraits; make a copy of a master painting
Assessments:
Students will create a self-portrait triptych that includes three views from a variety of angles, employing a unifying technique and color scheme
Interdisciplinary Connections:
n/a / Additional Resources:
Figure Painting in Oil, Graves
Classical Painting Atelier, Aristides
How to Paint Like The Old Masters, Sheppard
Portrait Painting Atelier, Brooker
Subject: Drawing & Painting II / Grade: 11-12 / Suggested Timeline:8-9 weeks
Unit Title: Drawing Plants and Animals
Unit Overview/Essential Understanding:
Scientific illustration combines art with the scientific study in a variety of fields. Students will create biological and botanical illustrations that demonstrate a knowledge of anatomy, explain biological interactions, and describe environments and ecosystems.
Unit Objectives:
Students will:
Apply scientific knowledge to artmaking
Use scientifically-informed observation
Practice biological and botanical illustration through the production of an original work
Use still life painting to create scientifically accurate illustrations
Study animal and plant morphology through sketching, painting
Focus Standards Addressed in this Unit:
9.1.12.C: Integrate and apply advanced vocabulary to the arts forms.
9.1.12.E: Delineate a unifying theme through the production of a work of art that reflects skills in media processes and techniques.
Important Standards Addressed in this Unit:
3.1.12.A5: Analyze how structure is related to function at all levels of biological organization from molecules to organisms.
Misconceptions: n/a
Concepts/Content:
Botanical Illustration
Insect illustration
Animal anatomy
Still life composition
Paleoart / Competencies/Skills:
Creating still lifes with colored pencil and gouache; Drawing living plants and trees through field drawing; Using scientific knowledge to create informative and representational (accurate) illustrations of prehistoric creatures / Description of Activities:
Still lifes of butterflies; Bird studies; Assemble three field guide images of various creatures they plan to use for their final composition; hybrid creature “Old Master” painting; Dinosaur figure studies based on maquettes and fossil evidence
Assessments: Create a fantasy creature based on three animals, situated in a realistic environment or a dinosaur or other prehistoric creature model sheet based on evidence provided in a scientific paper
Interdisciplinary Connections:
General Science, Biology / Additional Resources:
The Handbook of Scientific Illustration, ed. Hodges
Dinosaur Art, White
How I Paint Dinosaurs, Gurney (DVD)
Subject: Drawing & Painting II / Grade:11-12 / Suggested Timeline:3-4 weeks
Unit Title: Illustration: Comics and Cartooning
Unit Overview/Essential Understanding:
The unit in illustration introduces students a number of techniques, styles, and theories useful in constructing sequential narratives (comics). Beginning with a close reading of a work of comic illustration, students will learn the basic concepts of comics as a medium. Then will then work on constructing cartoon heads and figures, students will create model sheets of characters [depicting full figures from multiple points of view]. Students will then explore different methods of inking penciled drawings, using a variety of pens and brushes and employing multiple systems for rendering value in ink. An introduction to composition, gives the students the skills to begin composing their own panels, situating figures in an environment. Creating backgrounds based on specific art styles follows, after study of particular cartoonists and their methods for character and background design. The unit culminates with the production of an original work of sequential art.
Unit Objectives:
Students will:
Interpret the visual rhetoric of a graphic novel
Design characters and environments using a variety of artistic media and techniques
Create individual panels and page layouts based on principles of composition
Analyze the meaning and methods of Surrealism in order to incorporate it in their creative work
Focus Standards Addressed in this Unit:
9.1.12.B: Recognize, know, use and demonstrate a variety of appropriate arts elements and principles to produce, review and revise original works in the arts.
9.1.12.D: Demonstrate specific styles in combination through the production or performance of a unique work of art
9.1.12.E: Delineate a unifying theme through the production of a work of art that reflects skills in media processes and techniques.
9.1.12.F: Analyze works of arts influenced by experiences or historical and cultural events through production, performance, or exhibition.
Important Standards Addressed in this Unit:
9.1.12.J: Analyze and evaluate the use of traditional and contemporary technologies for producing, performing and exhibiting works in the arts or the works of others.
9.4.12.A: Evaluate an individual’s philosophical statement on a work in the arts and its relationship to one’s own life based on knowledge and experience.
Misconceptions:
Insufficient use of line weight in inking process/of ball and plane practice/ of feathering and hatching; reluctance to draw on reference material
Concepts/Content:
Nomenclature of comics
Character design/model sheets
Surrealism
Inking: hatching/feathering in pen/brush
Panel design/page layout / Competencies/Skills:
Define essential terms in comics medium; design characters using mannikins; adapt Surrealism to the design of original artwork; apply composition theory to page layout/panel design; practice inking using various media / Description of Activities:
Reading and discussion of graphic novel/comics terms; Designing characters using mannikins; Copying the work of master artists to incorporate in character design; Inking master drawings with a variety of media; Painting surreal figures and backgrounds based on master illustrators; Creating a comics narrative
Assessments: An original inked sequential narrative of at least a page (5-6 panels), incorporating surreal backgrounds and character designs based on a study of master artists.
Interdisciplinary Connections:
Textual analysis / Additional Resources:
Fun With A Pencil, Loomis
The Portable Frank, Woodring