CRITICAL THINKING GONE WILD

FRONTAL FRACTURED PORTRAITS

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

oil & water pastels, poster board, & various papers

My posting has been pretty eradicate lately.

I apologize,

I've been very distracted

(more on that at a later date).

But I'm going to try harder to get at least 3-4 posts up a week.

That's my goal anyways,

ha!

I'm very excited to share with all of you these gorgeous & creative portraits

done last school year by my 2nd year art students.

The kids were asked to find an interesting frontal portrait from a magazine or the internet,

in color and blown up fairly large so their teacher could see it.

The kids these days want to work off their phones

 and that's just too small for me to see their subjects to be able to help them.

I asked them to fracture these portraits into at least 5 different pieces.

They also had to enlarge the artpiece to at least 16 by 20 inches.

And they could choose to do the work in either oil or water pastel or both.

The students solutions are so well thought out and executed as you will see.

In fact,

the critical thinking in this first one by senior Sarah Oh is beyond creative.

We all loved the way she chose to fracture her work with floating bubbles.

And she asked if she could bring in additional media and I told her to go for it.

I see pen & ink, watercolor, prismacolors, & charcoal.

Sarah, 

I know you check the blog,

did I forget anything?

And then her background complimented the portrait so well.

Do you see the netting she glued down in the backdrop?

And did you notice that her bubbles are going off the edge of the format?

All are wonderful attention to details and just plain great designing.

Bravo young woman!!

Next we have senior Tiffany Chen.

Such a soft, lovely work.

I especially enjoyed the thin rice paper  she cut and glued onto the blue background paper,

makes it even more optical and dimensional.

But my favorite part are the petals of the daisies floating thru the work,

as well as how she built up the dimensional flowers.

I believe she used prismacolors for the value ranges on the petals.

But it was this one that all gravitated to.

It was so different then the others and was the work of senior Mary Kim,

an incredibly gifted artist.

The portrait she drew of her boyfriend was so realistic that we thought it was a photograph.

Here it is below.

She used oil pastel.

Instead of fracturing the face,

Mary chose to fracture the backdrop only,

something that no one had thought to do before.

I so love when the kids give me additional ideas for the future!

I have a give away area of old pieces of art that I don't teach with anymore.

And last year I put out several pieces of demo art that local Fullerton Ca. artist Mary Zarbano

had demonstrated Monoprinting on in the 1980's.

She had done them on thin parchment paper that was yellowing and falling apart.

So Mary plucked them from the pile and fractured and collaged them into her backdrop.

Brilliant idea I thought.

It's so great when the kids can repurpose.

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

FRACTURED FRONTAL PORTRAITS

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

pastels on tinted charcoal paper, glass shards & poster boards

There are so many ways to fracture a work of art.

This last year the first two kids below choose to cut their pieces up 

and glue and separate their  parts to a poster board backing.

This first one is the work of senior Ayesha Durrani 

and below a close up of the glass shards she glued on for more interest.

I felt the outside pierced edge of the format complimented her fiery subject.

She chose to work with water based pastels for this piece.

Next up is senior Eileen Lee with her very emotive  subject.

I would love to be able to snuggle up with this pup.

Eileen also chose to use water pastels.

And lastly we have senior Jazzarie Lo with her super clever composition.

Unlike the other two,

she drew each of her parts separately in different proportional scales.

She cut those away from her paper

 then played with their arrangement until she had something that felt just right.

Then down on the poster board they went with rubber cement.

This is always a challenging assignment in that the kids have to "craft" their pieces.

They aren't used to cutting out and gluing.

Plus it adds extra work time that they forget to plan out for

which leaves them stressing about finishing on time.

But somehow they always do.

BREAK IT UP

FRACTURED FRONTAL PORTRAITS

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

pastels, tinted charcoal paper, ink, colored pencils, construction paper & poster board

These pieces really show off the talent & creativity of seniors Bernice Lin & Risha Bhakta.

They were required to find a frontal photo to work from,

then fracture it into at least 3 pieces.

They could fracture right from the get go on one piece of paper which no one chose to do this year,

or they could draw selected sections of the subject & cut and paste them next to each other

like we will see  below in Bernice's kitty piece,

or the fracture could happen after the drawing was complete like the first two we will see.

In this first breathtaking piece by Bernice,

she started off with a beautiful photo with amazing colors.

She enlarged and drew it on tinted charcoal paper in water based pastels.

But it was her gorgeous fracture idea that really made it special.

She spent hours & hours carefully cutting out her fracture from a piece of white posterboard

with a super sharp exacto knife.

Truly remarkable Bernice!

And so proud to show it off.

This next one below by Risha is equally as magnificent.

Her technique was to first draw in pencil then go over that with colored pencil 

which looks so realistic in the way she captured the high & low lights,

the subtle color changes of each strand,

and the exact movement of each wave.

Brilliant! 

Her fracture,

the mask.

No one has ever thought to do this idea before.

She,

 like Bernice,

 used an exacto and black construction paper

to cut out her delicate & intricate design.

The most difficult thing was how to attach the mask.

Risha didn't want to glue it down in case she decided to take it off.

So this clever girl used transparent fishing line and dangled it down from the matt she framed it in.

Can you see the strings?

Pretty cool, huh?

Bernice enjoyed the fracture challenge so much that she did a second one 

with a cute little kitty as her subject.

In this one she drew in ink & colored pencil on a piece of white paper.

 She selected only sections of the cat that she felt would look good on their own,

drew those & cut them out,

 and mounted them next to each other on black poster board,

creating a jigsaw puzzle effect.

She bordered it with gold and then black matt to pull it all together.

TWO FRIENDS

WATERCOLOR & CHARCOAL

BEGINNING 2-D ART

watercolor & charcoal

I've really been looking forward to sharing these fabulous pieces by my beginners.

After spending 3 semesters learning about the Design Elements & Principles,

and 2 semesters learning to draw, 

my newbies get to putting it all together with these masterpieces.

We started with 3 preliminaries first before the good paper came out:

#1 learning to work with various charcoal pencils, sticks & vines,

#2 laying watercolor down first then putting charcoal over top for value,

and #3 laying charcoal down first then watercoloring overtop to blend.

The kids picked between #2 & #3 to build their pieces with.

We are starting with junior Eileen Lee.

What a dynamic composition first of all,

and then look how this piece flows & moves together over the paper.

Brilliant work Eileen,

and way to start us off.

Next we have junior Malaya Sithichai with this stunningly drawn & painted pup.

Sophomore Mikaela Guerrero took to this technique 

like a duck to water with her two urban landscapes.

So loose & spontaneous.

Effortless,

wow!

The second one was whipped up in one day.

Everyone was so taken with these pieces 

that I'm thinking of limiting subject matter this year to an urban landscape.

Your thoughts please?

With a completely different style is sophomore Clarissa Kim.

I'm so disappointed this young woman was not able to fit me in this year 

to continue on with her art studies.

I really like the lightly stroked charcoal in the feathers.

Lovely.

What  I did suggest last year for subject matter were birds.

I have a friend who sends me her nature magazines when she's done with them,

and they have numerous photos for the kids to choose from.

I like how junior Ayesha Durrani added the fairies to her landscape.

Very sweet.

And one of my personal favorites was this one by junior Eunice Shim.

Love the movement she captured with both her watercolor and charcoal strokes!

Another brilliant work and personal favorite was this one by sophomore Matthew Flores.

This was his fractured watercolor Extra Credit piece.

Love the layers he built this self-portrait with.

I screamed with delight when I saw this!

Something like"Oh My God,

did you guys see this one?"

And we end with these two Extra Credit pieces by junior Vicky Hur.

So very sensory & lovely Vic!

BACK TO MY BOYS

FRACTURED FRONTAL PORTRAITS

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

oil & water based pastels on paper

It's always fun for me to see what creative ideas the kids will come up with for this assignment.

First they need to find a great resource to work from.

Then their job is to enlarge it onto paper and work it in pastel,

also keeping in mind they need to fracture the work into at least 3 parts/pieces.

I was super excited by what junior Elias Rodriquez did for this assignment.

He used his best friend Kristina as his resource, 

and then built his piece dimensionally.

And to stabilize and house it he built a papier mache' skull.

A brilliant idea Elias!

I'm so impressed with your critical thinking, 

and the energy you put into this piece.

Know Elias,

that you have inspired me for next years kids.

I think this will be a new requirement to make it 3-D.

Thank you!!!

Junior Jonathan Hsu has pushed himself with the mounting of his portrait.

First of all he picked a great subject with dramatic coloring.

His fractures are over the eye and cheek areas,

but what really makes this piece pop is the framing.

Really cool!

All the students loved Nathan Chong's fracture of Kanye West.

I really like how he included the New York skyline in this fracture.

Makes so much sense for Kanye since he spends so much time there.

I just wish I'd photographed it on a different color backdrop so you could see the format better.

Sorry Nathan.

Senior Michael Cantu picked the perfect subject,

his little brother.  

Ahhhhhh,

 I love that!

The piece is really striking because of his color choices,

the distances between his fractures,

 and his range of values.

Great job as always Michael!

And senior Jovani Garcia surprised us by actually turning in an assignment.

And almost on time too!!

:)

I know,

I'm a brat.

We love you and it Jovani!!

The subject is fun, 

the fractures perfectly placed.

And the addition of the colors around the head create a wonderful visual pull for the eye.

So Jovani,

I'm really looking forward to seeing your next assignment,

your scratchboard,

remember that one?

It's due,

NOW!!!

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Slice Em' and Dice Em'

FRACTURED FRONTAL PORTRAITS

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

oil and water-based pastel, poster and matt board

These are 3 extraordinary pieces I will show off today by 3 of my top award winning senior artists this year.

The assignment was to find an interesting frontal subject, enlarge it with pastel and fracture the piece in some way, then to mount it on poster/matt board.

Each of these solutions are unique and well thought out.

And the drawing and pastel techniques, superb!

I will begin with Jasmine Zhao.

First of all her subject was beautiful with intense penetrating eyes.

Jasmine worked in water pastels and chose to fracture with a piece of filigree cut poster board.

And yes, she cut out all those tiny fine lines herself with extreme patience.

Out of all the hundreds of pieces we had up in the room at Open House, this work received the most awe inspiring attention.

You didn't know that did you Jasmine  :)

In this next work by senior Anne Allan, she also worked in the water pastels using a couple different techniques as you will see in the close-ups.

She chose to fracture by simply using 3 different portraits that she felt complimented each other when she overlapped them.

Very clever how she set them at an angle.

I wish I had a close-up of the dimensional butterfly at the top with eyes.

Such a cool touch!

Notice in these two close-ups that she is touching the paper with the tip of her pastels in different ways.  

In the top piece it's a precise shorter stroke, almost pointillist in some places, while in the one below she is using longer, curved strokes that are not as tight as in the face above.

That's the beauty of Anne, extremely versatile.

And lastly senior Cathy Luo blows us away with this thought provoking piece in which she includes a bit of text.

Besides being a tremendous design effort, Cathy has also chosen to use both the oil and water-based pastels in this fracture.  

Can you tell the difference?

Usually the oil pastels tend to be more dynamic and intensely bright and dimensional.

The water have a much softer look.

I am so proud of these students.

They worked so very hard for me the entire year, always giving me everything they had.

Thanks you guys!

Fractured Frontal - Belinda Wu

Just found this piece that was supposed to be posted when I did Pastel Frontal a couple weeks ago.  In that post I had mentioned that we were under a time crunch so that most of the kids choose to do a straight up frontal, but for extra credit and a whole lot of extra effort, they could fracture it up for more points.  So Belinda, being the remarkable artist that she is, took advantage of the extra credit option.  What is also cool about this piece is that they could work from whatever frontal resource they wanted, but Belinda choose to work from herself.  So she ended up with 2 self-portraits this year.  

Great Piece!

One More Fractured Frontal - Student Work

I was missing this photo when I posted these a couple weeks ago.  It was done by senior Michael Chen, and  one of my favorite things about his work this year has been that he alters proportions in his pieces.  It makes for a very effective and eye catching piece.  I believe he did this in water based pastel.  Outstanding work Michael!

Fractured Frontal Portraits - Student Work

I wish I had more of these to share but the rest where handed back before I had a chance to photograph them.  For the past several years I've had the 2nd year 2-D kids do frontal portraits of their choosing in pastel.  They also chose between oil or waterbased pastels.  And then I have them fracture their work into at least 3 parts.

Above senior Michelle Lee has gone above and beyond in fracturing her frontal.  I also make the kids mount their fractures on a piece of posterboard to stabilize and frame it out a bit.  What I feel is really spectacular about Michelle's piece are the curvy lines in white that make her parts pop. Plus I love how she has chosen to abstract the face colors into monochromatic color schemes.   She also changes up her work style.  In some fractures she blends the colors out, and in other pieces she uses a pointalist style.  Bravo Michelle!!  

If you know senor Janice Min's style, you know that she has a very minimalistic way of working.  But it's always so effective and show's off a great design sense above.

And this is junior Laure Kadi's strongest piece of the year.  She has chosen Marilyn Monroe to portray and she's done a remarkable job with it.  I'm so proud of you kiddo!

Fractured Pastel Portraits

These were done a while ago by my 2nd year 2-D kids.  We were studying the frontal head and the students were able to bring in their own resources to work from.  They were also able to choose between oil or water based pastel to build their fractures with.  And at the end they needed to mount all their fractures into one finished work.  Both of these pieces were made by sophomores.  Hanna Park did the one above and Samantha Arias did the work below.

What's really cool is the way Sam mounted her fractures on different angles as you can see below.

Great job you two!