Pre-AP Sculpture Students
Summer Assignments 2013
Questions: [email protected]
These assignments are important portfolio builders and summer practice. Please take them seriously. Since
summer assignments will be counted as major grades during the first grading cycle in the fall you need to take
them seriously. All summer work will be due the Tuesday after Labor Day. You will not be working on these
assignments during class time.
Failure to complete these assignments will most likely cause failure for the first fall grading cycle. Students
new to Bellaire, or who were not scheduled for Pre-AP Art 2 in the spring will have until the end of the first
grading cycle to complete the summer assignments. If you have questions please contact me at the email
listed above.
#1 Contract Journal: Explained in packet.
Complete a “Contract Journal” for a sculpture or series of sculptures you really want to do next year.
#2 & #3 Choose 2 from the Following Sculpture projects:
Cardboard Wall Relief
Pablo Picasso began a form of art we now call “Constructions” in 1912. It was an abstracted guitar. This was a great breakthrough in
modern art- the idea that paintings need not be flat, that there could be artworks between painting and sculpture. This art form is
also known as “relief” sculpture as related to ancient Greek bas-relief. Other modern artists take up this wall-dependant art form as
a “constructed painting” -most notably Frank Stella. One of my favorites of this type of art is displayed at the local MFAH and is by
Lee Bontecou.
Pablo Picasso
Frank Stella
Lee Bontecou
For this assignment you will create your own modern “construction” out of cardboard. Your composition can be abstracted from life
or non-objective, but you should not attempt realism. Minimum size of this construction is 15”x 15” or 14” x 16”. Objects need not
be square - though having some surface to glue to may be helpful. Bend cardboard, lay it on its side, score and peel the top layer to
expose its corrugation, score repeatedly to help you create curves etc. You may mix in paper. You may paint it or not. You may do a
series or one complex piece. See the following examples:
This is a whole class of examples displayed together… SEE THE VARIETY POSSIBLE!
This is a piece based on one of Picasso’s paintings. See how creative the
student was about format – exploding the square & using curves and angles.
Elsita (Elsa Mora)
Miniature Paper Critter
Layer, glue, and bend paper to create a reasonable depiction of an insect or animal. It will most likely need to simplified
or stylized to some degree in order to create a design that is workable. Be wise – choose to translate that which is most
characteristic of the insect or animal into paper – discard the rest. There are many websites where you can print out and
then fold a cat or other animal from a template. Doing this to practice may be helpful research. You may also want to
make preliminary attempts or maquettes with typing or construction paper. Finished sculptures are meant to be
“miniature”, but yours need not be as small as the one pictured - though it should be able to be held in one hand. Some
artists to look up for this project may be Elsa Mora, Sipho Mabona, & Anna-Wili Highfield, but there are tons of people
who work in paper and even more who do origami. Use whatever resources you find helpful to figure out how you want
to make your critter.
Anna-Wili Highfield
Related Artists
Sipho Mabona
Wire & Found Object Sculpture
Use wire, or a combination of wire and found objects to create a sculpture. Check out the work of
Thomas Hill & Lisa Fedon to get you started! (There is more than one artist named Thomas Hill, so when
you search you will need to enter in “Thomas Hill wire” instead of just “Thomas Hill artist”.)
Paper Shoes
Fashion Statements!
All students will need a pair of decent scissors and a craft
knife. You will be creating a pair of shoes, either in full or ¾
size. You can use any kind of paper from scrapbooking
supplies, left over holiday paper, or construction paper.
You will want to brainstorm ideas and think of patterns!
Research online. This has become a phenomenon! Patterns
may at first resemble dressmaking patterns. You will need to
think about how you will make paper - which is flat - into a
three-dimensional sculpture. Do you leave excess in some
areas so you can glue it to other pieces? Can bending or
folding the paper create form? What shape does the paper
need to be before you fold, bend, glue, or tape it?
After planning in your journal you will want to make templates
out of scrap paper to use as patterns and help you figure out
how to assemble your final shoe masterpieces.
Upcycled Cardboard Animal
Make your own animal sculpture out of
cardboard. You will need boxes, glue, and
a box-cutter or craft knife. Hot glue may
work fastest, but is not always the best.
Experiment with construction! You could
slot together your whole construction,
build by stacking pieces on top of each
other, or create pieces that fit together
when glued. Cardboard can be folded
along a line if you cut halfway through or
score a line or bent to create curves using
this same method. Be creative and have
fun! You may keep purely to cardboard or
add some color with paint or found
materials.
Contract Journals:
Contract Journals are how you will generate your own projects in art. Sometimes we will have a theme or
technique in mind, but other times you will be entirely on your own to pick subject and media. Contract journals
may be for one artwork, or for a series of work. All contract journals are to be written long hand in you artist
journal. There is to be no plagiarism in and as much original thinking and observation as possible in student
writing. All contract journals exceed 3 pages. Most contract journals contain 3 main sections:
1.
Artist Study
This is your own looking for examples of work that excite and inspire you related to the subject of
study. For example, if you are thinking of doing some figure paintings, then you will wish to find
examples of paintings or drawings that include figures that excite you and that may go the
direction you wish to study. This section is your report on what you found that interested you or
was of value to look at. Choose the very best examples of whatever work you are attempting to
study and items that might inspire and inform your direction for the project. The written part
should be a record of your own looking at (description), response, and analysis of the work of
these artist; your thoughts on their work. Use natural voice, but keep in mind art vocabulary and
concepts. You may use critical analysis and historical detail to inform your own analysis, but are
not to copy these wholesale from books or from the Internet. Please include pictures of the
artist’s work. Especially include pictures of artwork that you talk about and that inspire you.
Each picture should be documented with artist name, title, medium, and date.
2.
Technique
This is a record of what you learned about technique while studying artists and while looking into
the medium in which you wish to perform your artwork. Writing may be subject specific (your
report on a blog discussing how to paint the face in watercolor and how you learned to shade the
nose) or general (wet-on-wet washes, dry washes, dry brush, and so forth). You need not cover
old ground. For example, students who have some background in the medium and want to paint
an animal in acrylic may want to focus on creating texture and shading for form rather than
giving general information about how to paint using acrylic. Pictures of various techniques are
also welcome in this section. For example you may find step-by-step how-to pictures in a forum
or pictures of works in progress in articles about an artist or in artist’s blog.
3.
Planning
This is any combination of rough drafts, studies, preliminary sketches, and description of final
products necessary to explain the project and sufficiently explore composition and the final
forms your project might take.
Included afterward is a simplified Art 1 Contract Journal. This should give you a good idea of where these journals
may start. These students were given a choice of projects one of which was to do a drawing of a plant using oil
pastel. We had several plants in class for students to work from.