Cover Image: "Thoughts of One" by 12th Grade Student
The NBHS Art Gallery walls are filled with the finished drawings of 3rd Hour's Art Exploration class from their Contour Line Portrait Unit. I gave a sneak peek of their work in-progress from New Buffalo's Art Department "Welcome Back!" post but thought it would be exciting to share how these beauties turned out.
A little background...
The Art Exploration class jumped right into the deep end with portraits drawn from live models (their classmates!) while taking inspiration from Pablo Picasso's portrait abstractions. We studied blind contour drawing exercises and working in continuous line to free up insecurities and learn to take creative risks in the process.
As students began their final papers, they expanded on their preliminary exercises by making independent choices for media, composition, and their style of abstraction. They worked on developing their concepts through critical thinking and public speaking skills by analyzing their artwork alongside their classmates in group critiques.
In our "Pop Up Critique," students had to consider...
The use of space in the artwork's overall composition?
How the portraits connect to each other with continuous lines?
How to give feedback to your peers with a descriptive compliment and a constructive suggestion?
We practiced these analytical skills with a warm-up critique from an artist example created by Maria Lassnig.
"And NOW, we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair, as you zoom into your screen, and the art teacher finally presents......the artwork!"
"Thoughts of One," 12th Grade Student (Featured Cover Image)
My artwork is called Thoughts of One. I got this idea when I was drawing the faces of my classmates sort of near each other and decided to cut all of my rough drafts out from newsprint and arrange them on the final paper with one person finally looking forward as if he was thinking. My goal with this project was to draw portraits using contour lines as best and realistic as I could. I really love the way I did this and how all the faces look and the style of it overall.
"Lost in Myself," 10th Grade Student
I started with full faces, neck, shoulders, but I just wasn’t feeling it. After messing around a bit with some lines and some brainstorming, I came up with an idea that I really loved. It started off with random lines trailing off to wherever, which then became faces. I created three faces, all of which are somehow connected with one line... In the end, I’m very happy with how it turned out! I love abstract art a lot, and to be able to say that I made this artwork makes me very happy with myself. It was so much fun too! I didn’t have to stress about this looking weird, because it didn’t matter; it’s abstract!
"Value," 10th Grade Student
My artwork looks very dark. I drew in total four people; Josey, Samantha, Ethan, and Jessie. I really like how my drawing of Sam and Josey came together. The title of my work is “Value.” I called it this because of my use of charcoal. There are a lot of dark and light spaces in my art and I feel it is balanced nicely.
The base of my art is pencil but once I finished outlining contour lines, I began to go over it in charcoal. I normally connect all my lines when drawing because it helps me get a better feel of what I need to do to make it more accurate. You can’t completely see each line because of the charcoal, which is one thing I wish I made more attention of. In all honesty, Josey was my main concept for this project. I’ve drawn her multiple times because she is very beautiful. Adding the charcoal really completed the work to me because she tends to be very dark and sad all the time. I think that’s how she wants to be seen but she can be very bubbly around me.
My goal as an artist is to be able to create something from nothing. In all of my drawings I have used references because I have Aphantasia. Meaning, I can’t picture anything in my mind. I know people who can picture things in their head but I never could. I still can’t, but I thought it was normal. I really just want to be able to draw something from my own imagination without anything to help me reference. This project helped because I could draw from real life but not with my imagination, it more so helped with me trying to correct proportions and human anatomy. I imagined the final to look better but I feel other people might think the same way. There are some parts where I wish I did more to make it look better but overall I am satisfied with how it looks.
"Funky Faces," 11th Grade Student
My artwork is colorful and vibrant. My piece is called “Funky Faces” since it has faces with unrealistically large proportions and the color palette is funky. Color, line, shape, space, balance, contrast, and movement are my project's most prominent elements and principles of art. My artwork is made from sharpie, watercolor, and oil pastels. I used a splatter and smudge technique along with a continuous contour line. There wasn’t any specific inspiration, but I guess the main one would be the rainbow and using primary and secondary colors to make the features pop more.
I feel like my art could represent insecurities or mental illness; I can only think of these two because they are things I struggle with myself. I tried to make everyone look emotionless. I think my goals as an artist are not to be a perfectionist and just like make art without worrying so much. This piece did help because I was able to just draw the lines and not feel bad if they didn’t look how I wanted them to because it’s abstract. I learned that I don’t want to mix blue and orange oil pastels again, but I also learned that looking at a live subject while drawing is really hard. I didn’t really know what I wanted to make when I started, so it’s not technically what I imagined. This will help influence other artworks because I got to experiment with so many different techniques while making it and I’ll be able to implement those in other pieces.
"The Galaxy In-Between," 10th Grade Student
I used watercolor, colored pencil, and oil pastel to create this artwork. My art shows how different people are unique just like every star inside the galaxy no matter their hair, skin, or features. This is why I made the necks connect to the middle. I think my artwork communicates a social issue because some people sadly still have a problem with how diverse or “different” people are. This piece helped me reach a goal to draw a portrait that looks similar to the people in my class that I drew from.
"MLO," 12th Grade Student
This piece is of Milo and Mylo. Using neutral colors and thin linework in black sharpie, I was able to create, in my opinion, a very grounded feel to the work. I chose subjects to draw by how well I knew them, there's more Milos drawn because I know him better, and I was more comfortable drawing him. There's a few Mylos because this class has made me get to know them better a little, but not as well as I know Milo, which is why there's less Mylo's on the page.
"Lost in the Wind," 12th Grade Student
"Miles as Picasso," 10th Grade Student
“Grauhn,” 10th Grade Student
My artistic process was quite simple really… After finishing my contour line drawings, I cut them out and glued them onto the final paper. I filled in the remaining space with black charcoal and connected the remaining contour lines. I wasn't particularly inspired by anything, I just wanted the finished piece to look sketchy and organic and include a dark contrast in the background. I decided to leave some sections hanging off the paper because they all couldn't fit on the final piece. My title is inspired by the random sounds that people make.
"Collaborative," by 12th Grade Student
Collaborative is a piece that I restarted 1 or 2 times, with just sharpie sketches of my classmates, then Picasso-esque oil pastel renditions of Ethan specifically, and eventually rooted my feet in a style I liked. However, that instability of the creative process probably had some kind of play into how the final result turned out, especially in my self portrait with the heavy and messy lines, partly because of the way I was feeling that day.
I’m happy with how my work turned out but I wish I had used a lighter hand in some places. Maybe that’s something I can improve on in the future with upcoming projects. Something that I enjoyed about my artistic process was the change of paper sources from final art paper, to graph paper, and even scratch paper. The varying textures balance out my heavy handed line work in a way that I really enjoy personally, especially the use of colored ink that looking back on it, was a really creative idea.
"Out of this World," by 10th Grade Student
"Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it?”
– Pablo Picasso
This unit really pushed my students to think outside the box and work together by interacting with each other throughout the creative process. From the live-portrait drawings to collaborative exercises in group critiques, my students had to think critically not only about how to improve their drawing technique, but also the meaning behind their work. I am pleased with how each person took what they learned and visually communicated it in their own story.
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