Mrs. Lowe's Blog

Comprehensive Art

We got off to a slow start, as expected,  with our tessellations, they are very complicated and we had some early problems with our pattern. That is behind us now and the work is progressing nicely. The intricate patterns and detail the students are working with is wonderful. It will be great to see these hanging in the hall outside our classroom and you may want to consider mounting and hanging them at home.

This week we will continue working on the tessellations and those that finish early will take a more detailed look at the works of M. C. Escher and Peter Max, both masters of tessellation and detail.

Ceramics A

As we look forward to another great week, our class is working hard at glazing their coil pots, clay gun coil molded pots, pinch pots and slab-built bowls or plates. The work is progressing well and I think you will be pleased with what your student has done.

Starting tomorrow we will begin working on designs for our slab-built teapots. You and your student may want to look at some of the artists we will be learning about for inspiration. Gerrard Justin Ferrari and Ah Leon are two of my favorites.

Photography

Students have shot their black/white film, loaded it in the tank, developed it, and now are working in the darkroom on the enlargements. We will continue darkroom work this week and after the break. All students will be shooting a school digital assignment sometime this week. The students had a digital assignment to shoot this weekend called "Heebie Jeebies".

Photo D students are to shoot white on white and eggs this week.

 

Ceramics - Advanced

Hopefully our order of clay will come in this week. Students will be doing an exciting project with Mr. Revill using lizella clay and learning how to burnish. He has so graciously offered to take all of the pottery pieces home to fire in a special pit firing which cannot be done at school on school property. It is not possible to do this technique in our electric kilns at school. Students are drawing out several shapes for the pots as well as designs to be applied on them at a later date.

Many students are finishing their underglaze, stamps or sprigs, or dimensional pot. The kilns are being fired at least two times per week so look for pots to be coming home.

Comprehensive Art

As an introduction my name is Steve Revill and I am Mrs. Lowe's student teacher. It is my great pleasure to have this opportunity to work with you children and to learn from them as well while I teach class this semester. It is amazing and humbling to see the quality of work that is produce in these classes. I am a professional artist with a degree in Graphic Design and I will graduate in May with my BS in Art Education. I am also an experience potter, have shown my pottery in numerous shows and will have my BFA in ceramics soon as well.

Our Comprehensive Art class has been working on colored pencil techniques and the use of analogous colors. We will be carrying that knowledge forward into our new project where they will have the option to work with any two of the three; tempera cake, colored pencil and water color markers. They will also learn a bit about color theory and must work within a predetermined color scheme. I have introduced a lesson concerning tessellations. The best examples of this come from M.C. Escher and from Moroccan (Zellig) designs. They are a mathematically based style of drawing that can yield spectacular results when done well. I have no doubt that what is produced in this class will be amazing. The students are working hard on this project and I am pleased with what I am seeing. Due to the intricate nature of this art they will have about three weeks to do the design and we will display in the halls when they are finished so look for them coming home some time in March.

Ceramics A

As an introduction my name is Steve Revill and I am Mrs. Lowe's student teacher. It is my great pleasure to have this opportunity to work with you children and to learn from them as well while I teach class this semester. It is amazing and humbling to see the quality of work that is produce in these classes. I am a professional artist with a degree in Graphic Design and I will graduate in May with my BS in Art Education. I am also an experience potter, have shown my pottery in numerous shows and will have my BFA in ceramics soon as well.

Your students were well on their way to finishing an enormous coil pot when I started working with them in January. These pots have recently been bisque fired and will be glazed and fired over the next couple of weeks. I taught my first lesson with them just a couple of days into this rotation. They learned to make a molded coil pot and you should see these pots within the month. They are working as well on a pinch pot of their design. The last in our line of basic hand-building techniques will begin this week with a lesson on slab-built teapots. I am excited to see what they produce and where they will take the idea. If you want to see some of the work they will be looking at for inspiration you may search Gerard Justin Ferrari, Vince Pitelka, Stacey Esslinger or Elena Trepakova. These are just a few of the potters we will be looking at but it will give you an idea of our direction.

 

Photography

Photography students will be developing their film this week and then moving into the darkroom. We are still in the process of finding photos for competitions as we have several coming up. A hands and feet digital assignment is due today, Monday for Photo. B.

Photo D students are working on shooting white on white and eggs.

 

Ceramics

Students will begin glazing a few of their pieces this week along with the kilns being fired for other first/bisque firings. Hopefully, you will see some pieces home soon. Remember that we try to display pieces before they go home though.

Many Ceramics 1B and 2A students are beginning to work on the potter's wheel. Each student will have 3-4 days to try the wheel and then can come back to it later on if they wish.

 

Comprehensive Art

Students are ready to begin a new project today. Mr. Revill, the student teacher, will be in charge of this lesson on tessellations.

 

Photography

Three students have loaded their film this week after shooting their black/white film this past weekend. All students were to have had the film in by Monday, January 31st. We will be developing the film very soon and then moving into the darkroom.