TRUST YOUR GUT

OIL PASTEL LANDSCAPE

ADVANCED 2-D ART

oil pastel on black charcoal paper

Senior Samantha Tun,

the lone ranger in this 3rd year level class last year,

had to find a gorgeous photo of a landscape and blow it up onto an 14" by 17"paper,

then draw/paint it in oil pastel.

She did a glorious job with her color choices and transitional areas.

I especially enjoyed her rendering of the wood pier.

Here is Sam below checking proportions and balance as she builds the piece.

All my 2-D kids are required to do this before they turn in a composition.

Do they all do it?

No.

But I encourage them to.

Your gut never lies.

It will tell you from a distance if something feels off.

They have to learn to trust their inner artist.

Here is the proud creator showing off her work.

GLORIOUS COLOR...

PRELIMINARY OIL PASTELS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

oil pastels on black construction paper

that's what you get when you use oil pastels, 

the most remarkable results with color.

These beauties were my students first experience with them 

unless they had me for the 7th grade wheel class.

Let's take a look.

One of the class favorites was made by junior Jane Juan.

I was impressed with the multiple of layers used to build the nest,

and the 3-D depth she achieved

 as well as the very believable cracks on the egg.

Next we have one of my new favorite 8th graders, 

Iris Choi,

using a pointillist style to create this visual delight.

And how fun is this next one by junior Bernice Lin?

I love how she was brave enough to change up her techniques when applying the pastels,

creating a very atmospheric sky.

Also note her beautiful color changes in the sky.

Wow!

Junior Hapshiba Kwon is the creator of this last vivid piece.

Her color choices are awesome and she gives us a bird's eye view of the pool table.

And to balance the work she has brought in a bit of zentangling with graphite.

Great job class!!

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

LET'S GET JIGGY

GLUELINE PORTRAITS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

glue bottles and oil pastels

One of my favorite assignments to do with the beginning drawing students are these Glueline Portraits.

It forces the kids to abstract their subjects whether they want to or not.

That's because they have to draw their model with the spout of a glue bottle.

And you can't erase glue.  

Ha ha

We let the glue dry for 24 hours then come back into the piece with oil pastels.

FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's take a look.

Superstar junior Jane Juan did these first two (one for extra credit)

Her model on the one above was junior Kyla Balquin,

and on the one below senior Suha Malif.

Everyone was so blown away by both her pieces including me!

Brilliant designs and colorwork Jane.

This next beauty was done by junior Hapshiba Kwon of 8th grader Olivia Krueger.

Not only did she draw flowers in her design,

 but she also attached silk flowers around her edges for additional pop.

Senior Karisma Dev created this very clever work with senior Yasmeen Pardo as her model.

She bordered with an additional piece of paper that she brunt the edges on, 

and on the other side she opened up ketchup cups from McDonalds and smashed them down.

But my favorite part is how she put a censored label over Yasmeen's mouth.

Hummm,

 I wonder why that is Yasmeen 

 LOL

Up and coming star 8th grader Sara Ryave used junior Christopher Wongsavanh as her model.

I think it's so cool how she thought to bring in text into her work,

 and how she  also used the glue spout to create texture in her background.

And her use of color is quite striking as well.

Another talented 8th grader is Olivia Krueger.

I adore her portrait of junior Hapshiba Kwon.

Love the cracked face, 

the lace collar, 

and that gorgeous purple she used for the hair.

Probably your most important piece of the year Olivia!

Junior Katherine Ku went all out on her portrait of junior Jamie Rivas.

She really captured this young man's fastidiousness in dress and appearance.

I also really feel her color choices were spot on.

Besides abstracting with the glue spout, 

I encouraged the kids to abstract thru color, 

distortion and exaggeration.

Here is junior Bernice Lin's portrait of junior Hazel Cruz.

Again we see beautiful color choices, 

and exaggeration

 which makes this such a powerful piece.

Junior Jimmy Hwang turned 8th grader Rochelle Serrano into a fortune teller.

Clever young man!

And lastly we have junior Charity Lazardo's interpretation of senior Suha Malif.

Notice the strong diagonal movement she has created in her design.

Very appealing to the eye,

along with her mainly secondary color scheme.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these remarkable pieces 

as much as I enjoyed watching the kids create them.

WORKING WITH COLOR

OIL PASTEL

7TH GRADE ART WHEEL 3RD QUARTER 2014-2015

oil pastels on black paper

My 3rd Quarter 7th graders outdid themselves with color choices and drawing skills 

in these oil pastels.

They only had one day to practice and then one day to make these yummy pieces.

This first one by Stacy Min was everyone's favorite.

You would never guess that it was done by one so young.

Next up we have Kayla Kim.

I thought it was very clever of her to include text in this very fun composition.

My favorite was done by Elliana Lee.

The rich colors she combined really called to me.

And I love how she brought so much range of value and interest to her sky and foreground.

Brilliant work all of you!

Like Ducks to Water...

OIL PASTELS

7TH GRADE ART WHEEL 2ND QUARTER

oil pastels on black construction paper

my 7th graders took to the oil pastels,

 and in one day really created some lovely works of art.

Actually it was 2 days,

one day to practice and one day to build their good piece for grading.

I was really impressed with this one above by Ashley Sunwoo.

Very sophisticated for one so young!

Aditi Shahwas inspired by a piece Whitney alum David Hyun made back in the day,

and put the beaker bottle with it's bubbles in a really rich landscape.

Love the scale that Jeffrey Hwang drew to in his work above,

and Katelyn Chu did the same with her very dimensional looking heart.

But my favorite of all were these sweet cherries done by Seth Sapinoso.

Love his color choices which makes the piece pop

 as well as his slightly abstract quality of the cherries.

Almost feels like an oil painting rather then pastels.

Another Oops!

PRELIMINARY OIL PASTELS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

oil pastel on black construction paper

You've seen the work my 7th graders do in their Preliminary Oil Pastel pieces, but I also do this exercise with my Beginning 2-d kids on a larger scale.  

The oops is that I forgot to photo the others and for some reason I just have these two to show you.

The good news is that this one by senior Jackie Manipon is exceptional.

Her use of color is so beautiful to the eye, and her composition feels just right as well.

Just wish I had more to share.

Oh well!!  :)

The bad news is that I can't remember who did this second gorgeous work.

Help!!!

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!

Let's See What Those 7th Graders Are Up To

OIL PASTELS WITH ZENTANGLING

4TH QUARTER 7TH GRADERS

oil pastel and pencil on black construction paper

Cutie patootie Sahana Ramesh gives us this vibrant piece with wonderful zentangling going on in the background.

Cat woman Emma Canteno does not disappoint as she manages to put her signature kitten in her piece.

And what a lovely landscape she's got going on.

Another talent in the class is Liam Abalos.

His pastel really stood out as well.

I really like how he thought to fracture his sphere.

Ananya had a great 8 weeks in the class and created many lovely works such as the one above.

And Queena Hoang has come up with this highly unique background color that really sets her piece apart

Great job young ones!!

Abstraction at it's Best

GLUELINE PORTRAITS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

oil pastel on black construction paper

Probably one of the funnest assignments all year are these abstracted portraits that the kids do of each other.

They use the same partners as they did in their Before and After Portraits so they are very familiar with each other's faces.

I give them a bottle of glue to draw with, no pencils allowed.

This way the portrait is abstracted from the very get go.We talk about abstracting the face thru simplifying, distortion and exaggeration.

And the abstraction can occur in the drawing or pasteling phase or both.

The results are always electrifying! 

Above we have senior YooBin Han's interpretation of 8th grader Nari Park.

Here junior Michael Cantu has captured junior Zoe Lin.

Senior Catherine Chiou has nailed senior Alex Arias.

And vis-a-versa.  LOL

And lastly we have Nari's portrait of Yoo Bin.

It's remarkable the results you can achieve with glue and oil pastel!