Day 39

There are several ways that you can get your work to me:

You can take HIGH QUALITY photographs of your work and email them or text them to me.  You can also upload them to Google Classrooms.  I MUST be able to READ the Artist Research project if you photograph it.  If you would like, I shared a copy of the document that you can type your research on and turn in via google classrooms.  Check your email for my contact information in case you cannot find it.

As a reminder, all work is due on Friday, May 29th.

All artwork that we have created together this year while in class will be available for pick up in the fall as soon as we are back together.

I miss you all and hope you all have a great summer!  I look so forward to being with you in the art room in the fall!

Day 38

If you are looking for a challenge, you need to look no further than the internet.  You can find challenges that encourage you to donate to a charity such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge or the Movember Challenge which encourages men's health awareness or the Below the Line Challenge which encourages participants to 'live below the line' spending less than about $1.50 a day on food in order to bring awareness to extreme poverty.  There are silly challenges sure to annoy your teachers back in the old days when we were in a building together such as the Mannequin Challenge or the Bottle Flipping Challenge and there are some downright dangerous ones that I am not even going to mention here because, well, they are dangerous.

The list of ART CHALLENGES (which are not dangerous or silly) is long.  There is Inktober, which is a prompted drawing in ink challenge that happens every October, Sketch Dailies, which encourages participants to draw characters every day and provides inspiration, The Sketchbook Project which I am participating in myself thanks to a birthday present from my bestie and there are tons of general '30 Day' challenges that you can find just by searching for drawing challenges or photography challenges  and photoshop battles or painting challenges.  All these challenges are designed to help you to be creative every day, stretch your imagination, learn new skills and perfect the ones that you already have.

One of the challenges that has been popular on the internet lately is The Style Challenge.  The Style Challenge was created by a 17 year old instagram artist named Autumn Massaquoi (beautifulness87). The idea behind The Style Challenge is simple: Draw a character in YOUR style and then draw the same character in as many possible cartoon character styles as possible.  Autumn's almost 60K followers have joined the challenge and drawn characters in their style and then, also in the styles of The Simpsons, Fairly Odd Parents, Power Puff Girls, Disney, The Boondocks, Adventure Time, Naruto, Codename: The Kids Next Door, Tim Burton, Gorrillaz, Hey Arnold, Hanna Barbera, Mine Craft, Bubbleguppies, Ed, Edd and Eddy, Bob's Burgers, Rick and Morty, Rugrats, Phineas and Ferb, The Proud Family, and Spongebob, to name more than a few.  

Today's challenge is to draw a character in YOUR style and then draw that same character in at least 3 other cartoon styles.  Take pics of your work, post to our google classrooms (or you can just email or text them to me). Have fun!

Day 37

You can use a photo collage program or just put a bunch of photos in a grid on a document or slide.

Here's mine:

Day 36

Fashion designers are artists who apply the principles of art and design to clothing to make it both functional and aesthetically pleasing.  Most artists that want to work in the fashion industry will go to school and study for a Bachelor in Fine Arts Degree in Fashion Design.  If you have ever watched earlier seasons of Project Runway, a reality show where contestants compete each week in fashion based challenges, you will know that seasons 1-13 were shot at Parsons School of Design which is one of the top art and design schools in the world.  On Project Runway, designers are often given a challenge to create clothing using unconventional materials.  Over the years, designers have created clothing out of sombrero hats, newspaper, silk flowers, bird seed, and garbage bags.  Designers visited a candy store and created clothes out of wrappers and the candy itself and struggled with creating something to wear with vegetables after visiting the farmers market.  This was always one of the most fun episodes to watch but one of the most difficult for the designers.

You may have also heard of the Duct Tape prom challenge, Stuck at the Prom sponsored every year by Duck Tape. Every year, Duck Tape gives away $20,000 in scholarships to high school students who create the best prom attire, completely out of Duck Tape.  A quick google search will yield thousands of images of high schoolers in their best duct tape gowns and tuxes.   

Sylvie Facon is a French designer who creates beautiful ball gown out of materials like books and musical instruments.  You can see some of her work here.

Today's challenge is to make an item of clothing out of a non-traditional material.  Use what you can find in your house - look through your recycle bin for things like bottle caps, plastic, catalogs, envelopes and other discarded items.  Use your imagination to come up with an outfit, but don't worry!  You don't need to be able to wear it. You can make an outfit for a doll or a stuffed animal or an action figure.  It doesn't have to be human sized! 

Have fun!  I can't wait to see what kind of haute couture you create!

Day 35

Have you ever been to Tiger World in Rockwell?  If you haven't, I highly recommend a visit!  It opened back up this past weekend.Tiger World is an endangered wildlife non-profit zoo that focuses on education, conservation and preservation.  The last time that I was there, which has been a few years now, they had a liger named Wayne, so I am not sure if he is still there.  A liger is a cross between a male lion and a female tiger which are the same species but a different genus.  In the wild, lions and tigers don't live anywhere near each other so ligers are definitely always bred in captivity.  Ligers are the largest of all the existing 'big cats' today, ranging between 9.5-11 feet.  Wayne weighed in at 800 lbs.  Tigons are a cross between a male tiger and female lion.  Like a mule, which is a cross between a female horse and a male donkey (same species, different genus), ligers and tigons are sterile and cannot breed.  A lot of people question the ethics of creating tigons and ligers that would never be created in the wild because they are often born with health problems, the animals are prone to gigantism and the mother often has to have surgical intervention to give birth because of the cub's enormous size.  You can read a little bit more about the ligers and the ethics of breeding hybrid animals here and here.

Today's challenge is to create a wacky animal hybrid.  We don't need to worry the ethics of creating these animals because today, we are just using our imagination.  If you head over to google and search 'Animal Hybrids' in images, you'll get a page full of wacky animal hybrid ideas that could never exist in reality.  A horse with a duck face, a guinea pig lion, a dolphin kangaroo - there are a ton of them.  The image below comes up on your first search.

If you are having trouble coming up with and idea you can visit hybrid creature generators here or here.  The first link gives you ideas like a lab accident resulting in a strange cross between and rabbit and a lion.  The second link gives you pictures and even names them.  What do you think a Mooyote is?  Draw your hybrid, give it a name, take a pic and share in google classrooms. Have fun, but remember, no lab experiments!

Day 18!

Today is just a little bit of fun.  It's is supposed to rain all day so you will more than likely be stuck inside most of the day. Today's challenge is to just play a drawing game.  You'll need some dice, like you might have from a board game. If you don't have any dice, don't worry, you can use these online dice. Next, you'll need to choose a subject to draw from one of these game boards.  You can draw a landscape, or a face, or a cupcake or a lego person -there are 10 different boards to choose from.

Here's what you do:

1. Roll your dice (online or real)
2. The first roll is the first column in the board and the first thing that you draw.  If you roll a ONE, you draw whatever is in the First column, first box. If you roll a FOUR, you draw whatever is in the First column, fourth box.
3. Roll the dice a second time.  If your dice says SIX, draw whatever is in the Second Column, 6th box.
4. Keep going until you have completed your drawing.
5. Color your drawing in using whatever materials your have at home.
6. Take a picture and share on Google Classrooms.
7. Have fun! 

Day 17

Today is Earth Day!  Earth Day is a global celebration that has happened every April 22nd. since 1970.  On Earth Day, we acknowledge issues that affect all of us as global citizens such as climate change, pollution, deforestation and plastic waste.  Every year has a theme and this year, it is climate action.  You can read more about Earth Day 2020 here.

I thought that it would be appropriate today to learn a little bit about Louise Nevelson.  Louise was an artist who is primarily known for her abstract sculptures made from found objects.  Her assemblage art, sometimes the size of rooms, were pieced together from boxes, broken fragments of furniture and pieces of wood that would otherwise be thrown away.  Her assemblage art would be painted in one color so even though the bits and pieces of her sculptures might not have anything in common, the end result would be unified by a singular color.
To see examples of Louise's work and to learn a little bit more about her, visit here and here.

In honor of Earth Day, I would like for you to make a sculpture inspired by Louise Nevelson out of found objects (fancy words for junk) around your house.  To begin, you will need something like a shoe box lid or other shallow box that you can put your objects in.  Then, go around your house and collect your found objects.  Things like paper towel tubes, plastic lids from bottles or other containers, broken toys, bits of yarn, one doll shoe that has lost its mate, buttons and the like. Does your house have a 'junk drawer'?  That would be a perfect place to look.  Of course, ask an adult before you take something because I'd hate for the extra garage door opener to end up in your art.  Once you have collected all of your items, it's time to start the assemblage part.  Take your shoebox lid and start arranging your items in the lid in a way that pleases your eye.  If you have glue and the items don't need to be returned to their original places, glue them down to the lid.  Take a picture of the finished product and post on it on our Google Classrooms page.  Now, here's the part where we have to hope that we get to have in person art class again this year.  Remember where Louise would paint her sculptures one unifying color?  I'm not going to ask y'all to do that because 1. Most of you probably don't have enough paint of one color laying around the house 2. Your parents probably have enough stress already without the art teacher making you paint something 3. I'd LOVE to be able to put all your sculptures together and assemble them into ONE big sculpture at the end of the year (or even at the beginning of next year if it comes to that) so we will need them to be one color 4. I'm not afraid of a little bit of spray paint an it's my job to be messy.  So, that means that after you make your sculpture, I'm gonna need you to save it and bring it in to art class when we get back to school.  Okay?

Day 16

When you think about careers in art, most of you probably think about artists - people who draw or paint and sell their work - and maybe about art teachers, but careers in art go so far beyond those obvious professions.  In fact, some of you have probably thought about what you might want to be when you grow up and have not realized that it is an art related field.  Video game designer?  Fashion design?  Web design?  All art related fields.

Nearly all art and design related careers rely on being proficient in some kind of digital art platform.  Being comfortable with a graphic editing program such as Photoshop is essential if you are looking to find a job in the art and design world today.

Here's a short list of careers that rely heavily on photoshop:

1. Graphic designer
2. Photographer
3. Freelance designer
4. Web developer
5. Art director
6. Illustration
7. Social media marketing
8. Advertising
9. Animation
10. Game designer
11. Interior design
12. Fashion design
13. Set design
14. Comic book artist
15. Character design
16. Multimedia design
17. App design
18. Visual effects editing
19. Background artist (film/gaming)
20. Architect

There are so many careers that are art and design related that if you spent enough time, I am sure that nearly all of you would be able to find something that would interest you enough to explore it for a future career option. 

Today, I'd like for you to try your hand at digital art.  I would love for us to be able to have a digital art lab, with new computers that have Photoshop and other photo editing programs ready for us to get to work, but, since that isn't possible, I have done a little bit of researching over spring break and have found a program called PhotoPea which is a free web based photo editing program that is about as close to Photoshop as we are going to get.  I also want you to remember that when I was in art school, all of those jobs that are listed above were done the OLD FASHIONED way.  By old fashioned, I mean without a computer.  And yes, I know that means that I am older than dirt, but luckily, because we now have programs like Photoshop and Photopea, that just means that I can digitally manipulate my face and pretend that I am young again.  It also means that I am by no means an expert and I will be learning along with you as we explore this realm of digital art.

Follow the links to get to Photopea, and tutorials here, here and here to get you started.  

Have fun!  Play around with the program and see what you can learn.  I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Day 15!

Welcome back from Spring Break.  I hope that everyone had a relaxing and fun time during break and that everyone made the best of the time off.  I know that it probably wasn't the Spring Break that everyone was wishing for but, hopefully better times are in the near future.

Today, all I would like for you all to do is take the survey about what art supplies you have available to you at home.  Find it in our Google Classroom.

Day 14

Today's challenge is to create an art history meme.

Follow these steps to create your own meme and then upload it to Google Classrooms!

1. Go to The MetKids Time Machine. Pick a time period on the left, push the red button on the bottom right of the screen and then search for an artwork that you want to meme.

2. Save the artwork to your drive.  Make sure to give it a name so that you can find it easily.

3. Go to Make a Meme, click on the upload image icon at the top and then click on the beige rectangle in the center that says 'Click here to upload image'.

4. Find your artwork that you save to your computer, click on it and then click on open. Your image should automatically upload.

5. Scroll down a bit.  Put your text in the gray bar that says 'top text' and/or 'bottom text'.  You don't need to put text in both, but you can if you want to.

6. Scroll down a bit more and click 'Make the meme' in the green bar.

7. Save your image and then post on Google Classrooms.

Here's the meme that I made:

Day 13

Today's challenge is to learn a little bit about one of my favorite contemporary artists, Melissa McCracken.  I know that most of us enjoy listening to music in the AMS art studio when we are working and that it can change the mood in the classroom.  I so miss listening to you sing while we are creating and I even miss our occasional dance parties.  Read a little bit about Melissa McCracken, look at her work and let me know what you think over on Google Classrooms. I think she is amazing and I'd love to have one of her pieces hanging on the walls of MizzSmiff's house.  I'm saving my pennies, and in the meantime, I would love for you all to put on your favorite tunes today, break out whatever art supplies you have and just listen to what the music tells you to do.  Do you have synesthesia?  Probably not, it's pretty rare, with only about 4% of the population being aware of the condition.  But, research does say that it can occur with prolonged sensory deprivation, perceptual isolation and removal of stimuli and goodness knows, over the last few weeks, I would say that we've checked all of those boxes.  Let's make today a musically creative day!

Day 12

Day 12.  Today's challenge, after you read about Vincent Van Gogh and his paintings of his bedroom in Arles, is to show me your favorite space in your house.

This is Vincent's painting of his bedroom in Arles.  I love all the colors.

This is a picture of MY favorite space in my house.  A few years ago, I added this sun room and a deck to the back of my house and this is a picture of one of the reasons that it is my favorite space.  The checkerboard floor!  Many, many years ago I went on one of those tours that they have of fancy houses and one house, which was actually down the road from the school where I taught before I came to AMS, had floors just like this. In that house this floor, which is made of cork tiles, was in a third floor 'media' room.  When I saw those floors, I said to myself, 'Self, someday you are going to have a house and in that house you are going to have floors like this.' And now I do!  This picture is just when they were finishing the room. Now, it is filled with books and plants and art supplies and the comfiest couch ever.  One of my goals for this summer is to put blinds up on those windows.  When it was first built, I didn't need them because my house was surrounded by woods. Now, I have neighbors on one side so I need blinds.

Read about Vincent's bedroom here.  A few years ago, The Art Institute of Chicago recreated Vincent's bedroom in a one bedroom apartment that you can rent and stay in for one night.  I think that would be a fun thing to do if I was ever in Chicago.  There is also a hotel in The Netherlands in the town where Vincent was born and spent most of his young life that has recreated his bedroom where you can spend the night.  My list for visiting places has become much longer now that I am stuck here in one place.

I can't wait to see your favorite spaces!

Day 11

Color is important! It might even be more important that line or shape or any of the other elements of art. Note: That's my opinion.  Color is my favorite.

See if you can guess the following characters just by their colors and the way that they are arranged.  Answer on our google classrooms wall.  Then, once you've done that, see if you can create your own character or groups of characters defined only by their color order.  I imagine that you could use legos or draw and color them or maybe even put strips of colored paper in order and take a picture.  Upload and share in google classrooms for everyone to see!  Note:  I didn't make these images, I just found them all over the internet.

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Day 10

There are so many videos on youtube that show you how to do art things.  Art Hub for Kids is a fun one to give a try.

I hope everyone is doing well.  Remember to stop by Google Classrooms even if it's just to stay hi!

Day 9

One of the things that a lot of you are probably missing right about now is meeting up with your friends and playing together.  Maybe you are missing playing basketball in the gym at school or throwing a football around at home or even just watching sporting events on television.  Whatever it is, this virus and Stay At Home - Stay Safe has disrupted all of our lives.  Everything is different.  My challenge for y'all today is to think about a creative way that you can show your favorite sport.  Maybe you can get some action figures together and depict them playing a game.  I'm all in for Thor, The Hulk, Loki and Captain America playing a game of soccer.  Maybe you could get some of your sports equipment together and create a still life.  You can also draw or paint something sporty or even go through some magazines that might be lying around the house and create a sports collage.  You can do this in your sketchbook if you like or on paper that you have at home.  Whatever you do, take a picture and post it on our google classrooms page so that everyone can see your work.

Day 8

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.  I haven't seen my kiddos for coming up on 3 weeks now and I miss them terribly.  I miss seeing them in the hallway.  I miss their smiles and I miss their snotty little attitudes when I tell them to get to work.  I just miss being in their presence.  I didn't become a teacher to sit in my house and come up with lessons and post them online for my students to do with no real interaction from me.  I miss the joy in my classroom.  I miss all the personalities.  I miss the chaos and craziness and the aggravation and the hugs.  You would think that this forced isolation wouldn't be any different than summer vacation but it is.  There is a natural pause that comes at the end of the school year.  We wind down and we celebrate and we have time to say our goodbyes. We reminisce and settle things up.  We know it'll soon be time to take off and relax and recharge and spend the warm, long days with friends and family.  This abrupt break in the school year didn't give us that time.  And it's hard.  It's unprecedented.  I don't like it.  I really hope and pray that we will be given the chance to come back together as a school family before the end of the calendar and have a chance to see each other again.

Day 7!

Today's challenge is to go on a virtual field trip.  Choose a museum from the following links or one that you may find through searching.

1.  One of the best places to start is Google Arts and Culture.  Like everything else Google, this is a warehouse of art, museums and information. You may need to install the google arts and culture app in order to visit these sites. Visit the collections page to see a list of all the museums that offer tours through Google Arts and Culture.  Happy exploring!

2. The Uffizi Gallery is one of Europes best museums.  It houses some of the greatest art works of the Italian Renaissance collected by the Medici family.

3. The Louvre is the world's largest art museum.  Located in Paris, France, it has nearly 38,000 objects dating from prehistory to today. It is one of the most recognizable buildings in Paris, a former palace, now with its large glass pyramid in the main courtyard.  If you look carefully, you might find daVinci's Mona Lisa in the collection.

4.   The Frick is a museum in New York that houses the collection of industrialist, Henry Clay Frick.  If you take a visit, you will see works of art by Bellini, Ingres, Bronzino and Holbein.

5. A little closer to home, you can visit The Mint Museum of Art in uptown Charlotte.  While these Charlotte museums don't offer 'virtual tours', you can look at their collections online: The Bechtler and The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture.

6. Also close to home, check out the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh,  The Ackland Museum of Art in Chapel Hill, The Nasher Art Museum in Durham, The Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, The Weatherspoon in Greensboro and finally, about 45 minutes from home, The North Carolina Pottery Center.  While not all of these museums have virtual tours, you can follow the links and look at their collections on their websites.

7. This place, The Guggenheim museum in NY is one of my favorite places on earth.  The building itself is a work of art, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  Go.  Just go and look at it.

8. I'm saving my absolute favorite place for last:The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Someday soon, when we are all back together, ask me about the hours and hours that I have spent in this place.  It's my idea of heaven.

These are just a few of the hundreds of museums that are offering virtual tours.  How lucky are we all that during this Global Health Crisis we can sit safely in our homes all the while traveling virtually around the world visiting some of the most amazing collections of art that there is to be found.  And the best thing of all, it's all free.

Day Six!

Not my art work, artist unknown but a great example of what we are doing today.

Today's challenge is texture. Look for little things around your house that have a raised surface.  You probably have all kinds of bits and pieces laying around your house that will create a really neat image when you rub a crayon or dull pencil over the top. Like I said, if you have any old crayons without paper on them, hold the crayon on its side and rub over the top of the paper with your items underneath and see what kind of a design you end up with. It can be random, or you can make an intentional picture. Either way, have some fun with the element of art texture today! 

Day Five!

Take the day off.  Relax.  Think happy thoughts.  I'll chat with you on Monday!

Day Four!

Today, I just want everyone to take a breath and remember that we are all in this together.  Just because because our building is closed, doesn't mean that school is out.  We are all still a family and we are all here to support each other.  This 'new normal', however temporary, is difficult for all of us but we will get through it together.

If any of you are having a hard time or need to talk someone, remember that you can get in touch with Mrs. Baker and schedule a google hangout with her.  The information on how to do that is on the AMS site.  Also remember that ALL of your teachers are here for you and would love a reassuring email to let us know how you are doing.

Remember, that we are AMS Bulldogs STRONG!