STUNNING!

PRELIMINARY WATER PASTELS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

pastels on black construction paper

I always dread bringing out these boxes of pastels

because of their chalky nature and the kid's allergies,

and also because they are incredibly expensive and used up so very quickly.

And what a mess they make in the classroom.

The dust!

Therefore I make sure to turn on my 2 air filters on either side of the art room.

That and clay dust are sucked out of the air.

But when you see the stunning results you will understand why I do.

We start with senior Debbie Harris.

She took to these pastels like a duck to water.

Her color choices and range of values within each area really speck to my senses.

Luminous!

Absolutely incredible piece Deb.

Loved junior Mary Kim's lollipops,

clever subject!

I was horrified 

when I noticed that someone had put their fingerprints on junior Tiffany Chen's peach.

We hang the art pieces first in the office,

then for Open House 

and once more for the Senior Awards Banquet Nite (only senior work for this)

And usually the works comeback unscathed,

 but not this time.

I was fit to be tied.

I'm so sorry that happened to your piece Tiffany.

It is one of my favorites.

Your foreground is to die for the way you moved your values and cast shadow

in such a believable way.

Junior Sarah Oh created a beautifully executed backdrop/still life for her pearl.

And I felt the textual elements she added were remarkable.

And senior Helen Park achieved some crazy cool textures with her pastels.

Or is my picture out of focus??

ha

But notice how those strong diagonals move your eyes around the piece?

Wonderful piece Helen.

Here is another that I think I shot a bit out of focus by junior Varisha Azmi.

All of us really loved her subject!

And sweet, shy junior Maddy Uchiyama made this stunning beach scene.

Love the wide range of value in her beach ball.

I'm so glad I kept water patels in the curriculum.

Such a pleasure to share them.

WATER OR OIL?

PASTEL PRELIMINARIES

BEGINNING 2-D ART

waterbased pastels on black construction paper

I was so pleased with the creativity in these sweet prelims.

Some of these kids got to play with oil pastels in my 7th grade Art Wheel a couple of years ago, 

but not with the chalky water based ones.

They are super dusty and have a tendency to mess with the kids allergies.

But even so, 

they really enjoy working with them.

We are starting with junior Ayesha Durrani,

who I actually ran into today at Whitney.

It was my first day back,

to break the ice, 

and she was there volunteering to show new students around the school.

She really did a wonderful job with the pastels.

In this next one by junior Eileen Lee,

she shows us a very different style with the chalks.

There are several ways to apply them,

and I make the kids try them all to see which one they like the most.

Many of the young ones actually use several of the styles in the same piece like Eileen did.

We all loved senior Emily Allan's composition

 and how she filled the paper with this very expressive design. 

Then sophomore Matthew Robb brilliantly uses this monochromatic color scheme

which brings us such a peaceful feeling as we view it.

Just lovely Matt!

Junior Mikaela Guerrero cleverly uses a complimentary color scheme

 to give her design great impact upon viewing it.

And how fun is this one by senior Nandan Vinjamury?

He thought to bring in texture & text which the eye really likes.

And check out this gorgeousness by junior Eunice Shim.

I felt this was one of her strongest pieces all year.

Her use of color, texture and movement was masterful!

Go Eunice!!!

We end with junior Vicky Hur.

This very pretty piece was another class favorite.

We were so impressed with how she was able to incorporate all the colors of the rainbow 

within this very delicate work.

Don't Forget Your Allergy Meds

PRELIMINARY WATER BASED PASTELS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

water based pastels on black construction paper

For anyone with allergies, water based pastels can be highly irritating because of the chalky dust, so I rarely teach with them. 

But they yield such lovely results that I have to at least introduce them into the 2-D curriculum.

So I have the kids be extra careful;

no blowing the dust across the desks, 

and sponging the tables off at the end of the period.

Senior Vivian Dinh had such a bad  reaction to them that she put a pair of my eye goggles.

Clever girl!

Ok, beginners, I need help here. 

 I forgot to write down the names of who goes with which piece.

And what a shame because I showcased so many of you this time.

So if you see this post, please drop me an email at dartisun@gmail .com and let me know which one is yours.

Thanks!  

Just found out that this one was done by junior Nathan Chong.

Really like how he abstracted this by exaggerating the facial features.

The one above is the creation of junior Michael Cantu.

He always gives up super original landscapes.

Also notice that he's using a complementary color scheme which makes the oranges pop and the blues recede.

The kids learned that in their color theory unit, and I notice,whether they do or not, that many of them are using color schemes now to compose with.

Loved how senior Alex Arias turned this olive into an eyeball, and how he gave this piece a sinister feel.

I really like how senior Catherine Chiou made her background flow.

Feels very surreal.

Senior Kavya Madhavan was the first one to let me know this gorgeous piece above was hers.  

Notice her pastel technique is unique from all the others, almost a pointillist/crosshatching style.

So very cool Kavya!

And this last one, a favorite, belongs to Vivian Dinh who had on the googles above.  

I wish I could show you this one in person, she built the nest so beautifully with curved hatchure strokes.

Just lovely Viv!

Preliminary Water Based Pastels - Student Work

The creative, beautiful solutions that my students come up with always astound me and makes me so glad I teach where I do.  In 4th Quarter, my beginning 2-d kids explore lots of color media along with shading and shadows.  These pieces here are done with the chalky water based pastels (I posted the oil pastels a couple days ago if you want to scroll down), and it was my students first time giving them a try. 

The gorgeous piece above was done by extremely talented junior Michelle Lee.  In all her pieces she manages to convey a sense of movement thru lots of visual texture.  Look at all those layers of different colors she puts down, dang she's good!

I feel so bad, for some reason I didn't write down the name of the student who did the piece above, but if I had to guess I'd say it was either done by senior Karen Pan, or juniors Crislyn Ogawa or Janice Min.  If any of you are following this blog let me know if I'm on the right track here.  Anyways, I love the composition above.

Below we have senior Jennifer Park with this fun beach ball.  I had the students work on top of black construction paper, cuz it seems to make the colors pop. 

Senior Rachel Kim did the very clever design above, and below senior Tiffany Wang drew this lovely bird/cherry compostion.

And lastly we have another very talented junior who I hope returns to me this year for 2nd year 2-d, Gary Fong.

Preliminary Water Pastel - Student Art

Senior Brian Choi did this beauty last year in the Beginning 2-d class when we were building spheres in pastel. For the preliminary, they had to turn in was a simple sphere that was shaded from light to dark with a cast shadow and horizon. Well all of that is in place along with this wonderful creature he has created. What talent I get to work with! Speaking of talent, I just got an e-mail from one of my students who graduated in the early 80's, Rik Slayman. Talking about a blast from the past! Loved hearing from you Rik. :) Hope you enjoy the blog, you will definitely see some art assignments from your days here at Whitney. Check out what the kids are doing now for color theory, you are gonna be flabbergasted. And the before and afters are still exceptional, just like when you were here. Give Robert and Danny my love. You guys better come visit me LOL