Fine Art III - Pastel/Charcoal Angled Object Renderings

I haven't written about my Fine Art III group in a while, because their projects take so darn long to complete!  With my Fine Art I kids, each assignment will take about a month to complete, but with FAIII, that doubles.  That means that as of now, the month of February, we've only completed 3 projects in class!  To remedy this, I assign a month-long homework assignment every marking period, so their real tally of projects is 5, but still, we move slowly compared to my other groups.

In late December we started our Pastel/Charcoal Angled Object Renderings.  Each student had to bring in an original photograph of an object taken from an extreme or unique angle (underneath, just above, on the side, etc.)  We sketched and practice for a day, and then dove right in!

I've mentioned before that this is my first year teaching Fine Art III, and so far, while I feel like I've gotten some really great piece out of the kids, I also feel sometimes like I'm doing doing a great a job as I had hoped.  I was nervous to start the Pastel/Charcoal project, because it can be a hit-or-miss kind of medium sometimes.

As per usual, I was pleasantly surprised with what my kids were able to bang out:

 This is one of my favorites.  So far, this piece is this student's best work and she's incredibly proud of it.  I think all of her textures are spot-on, and while the angle of the boot isn't exactly "extreme" it's different enough to catch your attention.

 Although this one is relatively simple, I think it's really cool.  I love how she worked with the thicker pastel to create the water's movement.

 This student worked incredibly hard for me on this project, and he really surprised himself.  The original photo is of a stone statue in his house, and out of context it's a little hard to tell what is going on here, but I loev how it's almost abstract in a way.

 Look at all those incredible textures!

 This was a "happy accident" of sorts.  This student didn't remember to bring in his own photo, so after a few minutes of walking around our and other classrooms, he came back with a photo of a ton of X acto knives sticking out of a block of foam. (As you know, my X actos are definitely not stored this way!)  But it made for a really interesting photo.  I love how he manipulated the charcoal to be sharp and in focus and then soft and blurry.

 This boy used his beautiful, white Les Paul as the subject for this project.  I think it came out super neat!  The guitarist in me appreciates how much attention to detail he gave this piece.

 Another one of my favorites, because it's just so weird.  He grabbed this photo from home- I can only guess it was taken on vacation somewhere?  I think the black, gray and white tones and the sharp, straight lines of the lounge chairs are such a great contrast when compared with the soft, pink tones of human skin.  His hair textures are fantastic.

This was a fun piece, because the photos he used as inspiration was a photo taken by a photo student of mine last year!  I recognized it instantly.  I let this student work on smaller paper as she had super tiny details to capture.  She did a great job.

 This student is one of those kids where you give the assignment, turn your back for a minute, and then when you turn back around, it's done.  It's like she has elves come in the night and do the work for her.  I love the texture she's given the burner.

 This piece was really ambitious of this student.  Not only is it of a really unique angle, but it's a reflective surface, which proved to be a little more challenging than she originally thought, but she handled the material really well and I think it reads true to the photo she worked from.

 Another one of my favorites.  This kid is a real piece of work some days, but the quality of work he puts out almost makes up for it.  He spent a lot of time creating his even, accurate gray tones for the panels of the stereo, and even though he protested- a lot-, went back in and put the warmer tones where they were visible in the original photo.  The warmer tones really pull it together.

 This was another student who forgot her original photo, so after a few minutes of walking around the room, came back with this shot of the paint brushes drying in my drying rack.  I love the reflections on the metal and all the different tones she captured in the brushes.  And I'm happy to report those brushes are actually very clean, they've just stained those colors.

Overall this project was a major success and was just the boost I needed after feeling a little let down by our first two in-class projects.  I realized with this assignment that the kids are still learning which materials they prefer working with, and so far, almost all of them are comfortable with pastel/charcoal.  I also realized that letting them work a little larger (these papers were 18x14) gave them a little more freedom to move about the page and explore.

A few of these have gone out to a major art show we participate in every winter, so I'll let you know if we win anything!