Online teaching - 9th grade design projects part 1

When all schools in the country were locked down due to the COVID -19 in march, I had my doubts about teaching art online. I mean how can I control and supervise the creative process? What can stimulate my students to create and not to copy? But look at that!After two weeks of work, the students from 9th grades proved so well at being young designers that I am now proudly presenting some of their completed projects on graphic design, product design and game design. More to be ulpoaded soon!

Art club

Each year I present the Art club to our new students with a little fear that it might not turn out as good as I tell them it will. Midyear I see I have no reason to fear anything, it works just fine. Last two years have brough many achievements, many new skills have been learned, many new projects have been realized. Bellow are some photos illustrating my words, but I am mostly proud of the last two and of being able to provide such exprience for my students - creating a real book.

Exhibitions

Well, I've done really bad job at keeping this blog going and I apologize for that. It seems that when you need to participate actively in the buzzing life of the students, it's hard to keep record. Anyway much has changed, but one has stayed the same - students still enjoy making art so here is a brief and incomplete summary of the past few years:

Self-portrait task

Naturally every artist is inclined to paint himself for one reason or another. History of art points at so many examples of self-portraits that it is almost impossible to tell if there is an artist who hasn't actually made one. Just look at Van Gogh's dozens of versions of himself. Or think of Frida Khalo's numerous paintings of her own image. No matter what the function or purpose of the self-depiction might be, the self-portrait is an important part of the artist's growth. 

The self-portrait task my students undertook was based on series of researches on the human body as a structure of geometrical shapes. The second stage involved a great deal of looking at cubist works and trying to interpret the link between the simplistic initial sketches and the simplified human figure recreated by the Cubists. The final stage of the task was to create a self-portrait using the language of Cubism and the geometrical structure. Leaving realism behind was a challenge for them, but the results were pretty inspiring. 

Sketch by Polina Nikova

Self-portrait by Ivan Maslyankov

Annual plein-air

The plein- air is an artistic event I have been trying to establish as a tradition in our institution for a few years now. Having in mind that our school is language orientated and Arts are not a priority subject, the idea itself was slightly radical when I first introduced it, but the plein-air is also great opportunity for CAS activities so gradually it became well accepted and popular among the students. For years I have worked to put emphasis on the importance of creating art and doing so outside of school, and the last plein-air is what I consider the best plein-air we've done so far- it was the smoothest blend of students I have worked with in this type of artistic activity. Not only my VA students but all 11th IB grade and students from the National Programme participated in various art exercises, worked as a team, enjoyed the art-making process, discussed their results and generally had fun. 

We tried out many inspiring techniques such as basic drawing, clay sculpture, papier-mache, photography, land art. All in all the results were a beautiful mixture of ideas, visions and skills, put together in a nice end-of-term exhibition.