We are winding down the year but our artists are still knocking out artwork after artwork. Lainey created the above piece digitally on her tablet. Tablets make clean up easier but they are harder to hang in the display case.

Jo Jo completed another stencil of a fellow classmate. this work is actually three layers of stencils, overlapping. 

This is an app that generates the image based on student input. it's create pretty neat looking works of art.

3D printed turtle, painted in acrylic.

Stippling takes a while. lots of dots. Lots of dots. Lots.. dots.

This is a remake of a piece this student previously completed. She wanted to redo it to see how much she had improved her skill set.

Hunter decided to create a pixel art image. We didn't have any post it notes so he had to hand paint and cut his own squares, 2" x 2".

From up close it doesn't look like much.

as you back up its starts to resemble a face.

From down the hall it looks like Kevin Hart.

This year was a 'big first' here at the Art of South B... in fact, it was a big first for SBHS, Brunswick County and for me, your humble art teacher. For the first time ever, in all three circumstances, we offered AP Studio Art.

So what's AP Studio Art you ask? Well, let me explain. AP Studio Art is an advanced placement course offered by the College Board. Students enrolled in the course must produce 24 works of art to create three sections of a portfolio.

The first portfolio section is called Breadth. Students submit 12 original works of art that show a wide variety of skills and techniques. The second section is their Concentration. These 12 works must demonstrate a common theme. These are the works we'll focus on for this post. The third section is Quality. Students submit 5 works of art that demonstrate quality.

In all, we had 14 students enroll this first year of which 13 students submitted portfolios. In total, over 300 works of art were created! Below is a look at some of the Concentration works completed this year. Words in quotes were written by the student.

"​My concentration is a series of portraits depicting the wives of Henry VIII at the beginning and end of the marriage. In these portraits, I will exaggerate certain emotions in the facial expressions and ideas behind the image in the background."

"​The Central idea of my concentration is depicting trash in coastal areas by creating collages with the actual garbage left in these areas. I went out and took all of these photographs to make the collages. The coastal area is heavily affected by litter because of the geographic location. All of the bottles and various plastics end up on the shores and in the waterways. I want to show how litter affects the natural environment by making artwork using litter found in these coastal areas. "

Kamryn began her concentration with an interested in photo-manipulation. She soon branched out and began creating original abstract digital works. These designs later lead to her incorporating imagery with a focus on various principles of design such as repetition, perspective, and movement

"​The central idea of my concentration is based on a series of questions that a person would be asked. The artwork depicts the responses to the questions metaphorically through portraiture. The audience engages the questions through the title, views the portrait, and makes a connection between the two."

Originally, Grayson planned to morph his own original paintings with photos of classmates. As he worked through the process, he realized he was less interested in the painting process and more interested in morphing animals and humans. 

Vienna created a portfolio of acrylic landscape paintings. All of her paintings were created using he own original photography. She was particularly interested in capturing strong moods through the use of lighting.

There's a new teacher here at the Art of South B. Stacey Belter (above, right) started teaching at South B at the beginning of this semester and already has her classes up and running. Belter opened the semester by introducing several of the Nine, including architecture, the portrait and landscape. Since then she has introduced several choice-based concepts to work towards a studio model. 

I interviewed Belter about how she liked working at South B and also asked her to give some insight into her teaching methods. Belter said,"I just put it on blast, I tell them, tap those breaks, stay in your lane, cause it's too much, too much." I actually didn't understand anything she said but did request she provide a dictionary of phrases for future interviews.

Next, I asked her students what they thought about there new art teacher. One student said, "She's a fabulous dresser." Another student added that she was a, "Very fashionable." A third student mentioned something about her great hair." Fashion aside, I pressed for their thoughts of Belter as a teacher. "Umh, umh. umh.... She wears cool pants!"

Above: Providing opportunities for students to work with different materials, a center was set up so students could create ugly dolls.

allowing for student directed teaching lead to this student combining stencils and printing to create these works of art. This student later show other students how to use this technique.

Students where challenged to create a work of art with a focus on text. Lots of good stuff coming out of the art room.

Best In Show!

Can  you say Best in Show?! Congratulations to Taylor for winning Best in Show at the Southport Brunswick County Art Exhibit beating out all artists from West, north and East Brunswick high schools!

(OK. there is no East Brunswick HS but if there was...)

Second Place!

Placing second Southport Brunswick County Art Exhibit was out very own Vienna for her excellent seascape acrylic painting.

Other Happenings This Week

Katie completing another digital work

Giant Hamburger and soda add to the french fries to complete the combo meal

Pasty working in charcoal

Chloe decided to use the tie dye ink... just in a slightly less traditional manner.

Nyssa working digital, adding the scribbles was an interesting effect, especially in the eyes

Jo Jo and I talked about the concept of 1000 origami cranes. So just 999 to go

That's some nice color pencil work!

Excuse the mess, it's Friday but allow me the opportunity to introduce the Tables. Our open art room is student directed. That means, students decide which direction they want to take the art they are creating. Many students come to class with ideas and are ready to jump in. However, some students are looking for new ideas, new opportunities,  new techniques that they might not have known or thought about. That's where The Tables come in.

Each week we present a new theme with two new project ideas, one on each table. These table projects come with a quick demo as well as all the supplies needed to create a work of art. The theme and the project materials are set up for one week. The following week, there will be a new theme and two new project ideas.

Maybe the best way to explain this is to show you what happened this week. Our weekly theme was Textile. 

Table One: Ugly Dolls

On the first table we set up all the materials needed to create an ugly doll. This included different types of materials, felt, googly eyes, hot glue guns, needles and thread and scissors. We presented a short demonstration which included a few examples of ugly dolls. After that, the students had at it. 

Now not everyone made an ugly doll. The concept of the table is to provide a project idea for those who are looking for something different or are having trouble coming up with something on their own. Think of the tables as another option. Its all student directed

Sewing is not something everyone was interested in so we provided hot glue guns as a means of sealing the dolls. Still others that already new how to sew spent the time with the needle and thread. Some others, that didn't know how to sew, learned.

​Also, not everyone made an ugly doll. Some students choose to make pillows, some square, some rectangles and some shaped like hearts.

We printed out a few examples of ugly dolls to give students a starting point. Some students designed their dolls ahead of time while other students started cutting without a plan. Both produce different results but both are acceptable methods of learning.

Well, some work out better than others.....

Table Two: Tie Dye

To continue with our textile theme, on table two we introduced tie dying. The students had to bring in their own garments, t-shirts, socks as such. We provided the dye, rubber bands and demo about various techniques that produce different results. 

This is an interesting method for using a folding method. Also, the shirt was already blue. so this was a rather experimental piece. It's cool when students aren't afraid to experiment and try something where the results aren't guaranteed. In the end, it turned out really well.

Of course you can't go wrong wit the classic spiral.

Tied up and dying in process.

The final results

A bag of socks!

Next Week: Journaling and Tar Felt paper Painting
A Now that textile week is over, its time to set up for next week. Our theme will be journaling and will also include felt paper painting. See you then!

Hannah likes to draw wolves... like, a lot. She likes to draw wolves a lot! So I was like, "Why don't you draw eight wolves and then you could animated them and make it look like it was walking?" and she was like, "OK" and so she did and this is the result. I like how the ears wiggle.

The day before spring break we thought it might be fun to have a little egg decorating contest. So we brought in a bunch of eggs, yes, real eggs, and gave each student and egg to decorate. We had three categories, zentangle design, character design, art history design. We got a lot more characters and zentangles but it was all good. We got enough decorated eggs  to fill this whole case and part of another.

The other Hannah started this stippling of horses. she hasn't finished it yet. She started before break and hasn't worked on it since returning. i'll have to ask her what she did with it. Maybe she just needs reminding. Things started can become things done. 

This is a huge cup of soda that goes with the large fries and hamburger that was already completed. This piece, which so far is only the wooden frame, has been designed and created by Hunter. Now it gets passed on to the other students in the group would will decide how to finish it up. Meanwhile, hunter is starting their next group piece which will be a skateboard ramp. Get 'er done.

Drew knows how to make a stencil. 

This is another work by Morgan who is considering making these part of his AP concentration next year. The frame was created by Hunter.

A group of artists here at South B are trying their hand at digital art. Unfortunately, technology at our school isn't as easily accessible as we might like. Many websites, online programs as well as apps are blocked. This makes teaching digital art difficult, but not impossible. 

Despite, these roadblocks, our artists are finding ways to produce some incredible works. They are learning new tools and techniques for working with the technology we have. BYOD is another alternative for students. This option allows the students the freedom to create in the program they choose and  also the ability to work on their art at anytime or place.

Above: Kamyrn downloaded Photoshop 3.0 onto her laptop. She has been experimenting with digital imagery.

Nyssa created this work on her iPad. She created this with her finger. Since then, she has borrowed a stylus. It will be interesting to see how much more detail she'll now produce, not that it was lacking before.

Grayson has been working in Photoshop, I have it installed on the teacher desktop. That makes it hard to take attendance sometimes but we work it out.  :) This is a mix of his puppy and his friend Andy. i'm not sure which part is which.

Jelonnie has been working digitally for a while now. In her recent work, she is exploring the idea of purposely omitting parts of the portrait. The above piece  is a work in process but you can get the idea.

Max has a tablet but some students are creating similar works on their phones. I have fat fingers and have a hard time sending a text, let alone creating a work of art. I'm impressed by the detail they are able to create on such small devices.

Katie Susan borrowed my iPad. She worked several different images on the iPad then combined them in Photoshop to create the image below. Halfway through her project, I updated the iPad and the program she was using, Sketchpad Pro, became obsolete! I paid five bucks for that app! She had to switch apps mid progress.

This is the final piece, with the  iPad images combined in Photoshop.

It's an age old question. The question has been debated and the reason for the debate might be because the answer is so hard to nail down.  Perhaps it should be hard to nail down. Who gets to decide what art is? In the Open Art Room, the student gets to decide. When the student decides, they might not come up with the answer we expect. That's what makes it so fun. Here is a look at some of the happenings this week at South B. Definitely an interesting collection of art.

It's a flower. its a lamp. it's a lamp flower. She brought in the lamp and presented it as a gift for another teacher at our school. However, the light bulb was mine. Where is my light bulb?!

The window frame was just sitting there in the back of the room. Morgan had been working as some illustrations that looked like stain glass. So why not paint on glass?

For the background texture, she applied gloss medium in thick layers with a old brush. When it dried, it gave the look of old glass which is exactly what Morgan was going for.

You can't sit around on your phone in the art room. if you do, it's possible the other students will mistake you for a canvas. 

He was good sport about it and even posed for the photo. Is it art? You decide..

I didn't know it but it turns out the nurse's office has shampoo bottles. Back in the art room, we dunked him under the sink for a hair washing. We also have a blow dryer. He was back to normal before the end of class.

The other Morgan has been working on these large pastel drawings. I think this is one of his best works so far. Very sophisticated. Hunter, who is really good with wood working, built the frame. This is a large piece, about four feet tall.

Meanwhile, Jo Jo appropriated several different stencils and combined them into one to create this work titled, Dandelion. Again, Hunter was there to create another frame.

Ace brought in some chips which we ate. The empty bag soon became the inspiration for Tim who decided to paint the label. The label then became the inspiration for Tim and Luke to create  the giant bag. The giant bag became the inspiration for the giant chips.

Landon had been trying his hand a light painting. The guitar was drawn first, then he combined his photo with the guitar light painting with some help from Photoshop.

I showed the class a presentation on Buff Diss. He's a graffiti tape artist. Then Skye asked if she, and a few of her classmates could go look at something in the hallway. The didn't come back for two days.

Now every locker in school is covered in a skyline tape mural.

3D projects are like a box of chocolate. There is such variety of materials which can take any number of different shapes. You truly never know what you'll get. Over the last few weeks a number of sculpture type artworks have taken shape here at South B. Here is a look at just a few of those works.

Above: Cactus of Lights. The photo of this art work was taken wit hthe lights out but with the lights on it is equally as interesting. Note the hand painted flower pot. I found the drips reminiscent of Ai Wee Wee dynasty vases.

This photo was taken before the work was completed but who has the patience to wait to take a pic of a cowtar! Yes, strings were added and yes, it is playable. OK, when played it sounds more like a cow than a guitar but still, playable is playable. Hey, its a poor musician who blames his instrument!

Let's blame Clyde Caw. He got me started on the idea of the marble drop. When you have a few students who are better at problem solving than sitting in a chair, designing a marble drop is fine idea. OK, this one isn't much to look at. No form over function but we were going for a working model. This is the mid section of the drop. It starts much higher and ends much lower. It also took up an very large amount of space in the studio. For that reason the project's end was time sensitive.

Yes, the marble drop had a loop and yes, the loop worked! Don't ask me how but they figured it out. 

This is a straight forward copy of what Ross Bonfanti creates when he stuffs wet cement into a plush toy,waits for it to dry, then rips it off. Still the results are always unexpected. Its both creepy and cute. It's also sitting in the display case. No one at school (except for the artists who created it) understands it. 

This is also in progress and doesn't do the final work justice. Its all newspaper and in the end had a dress and head gear and is painted and has jewelry. 

Ok I know we don't have many canvas boards left but i refuse to believe the students can't find anything else to paint on. 

There is always so much beautiful work that is created in color that it sometimes overshadows the incredible work that is created in black and white. the following post is a shout out to all the artists at South B that are focusing on line and value.

Above: This is an engraving, scratched out of plastic and run through the print roller thingy. Yes, that rolly thingy serves a purpose besides crushing crayons.

Pencil drawing with both some nice line as well as shading being added.

This work was probably created as a sketch for a future color piece but there enough  good stuff going on to stand alone. 

This drawing (still in progress) is part of a concentration work about answering questions. The question was, what would you keep or change about yourself?

This is another engraving. the artists swapped out the faces of Mount Rushmore for the students in her art class. This is a photo of the plastic sheet, not the final printing. 

its a drawing of an apple. Only one apple. not like that book where the art teacher makes the students draw an apple every day for a hundred days. I would never do that ;)

Stencil of a wolf, spray paint on paper.