Course Expectations
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My Teaching Pages: burlingtonhighschoolart.weebly.com (Scroll down to the lower left of BHS Art homepage for AP course.)
AP Central Website: apcentral.collegeboard.com
AP Central: Art and Design Course and Exam Description, Effective Fall 2023
Burlington High School Art Department
2023-2024 School Year
Teacher: G. Ratkevich
Course Title: (AP) Advanced Placement Studio Art
Course Number: 516
Grade: 12
5 per/wk – 5 credits
Room: 215
Prerequisites: Three years of art courses, including Studio Art Honors III in the junior year
I. Course Overview
Advanced Placement Studio Art is designed for highly motivated students who are committed to the artistic disciplines. Using guidelines established by the Advanced Placement College Board, students must prepare a portfolio of their best work to be submitted for discussion and evaluation at the end of the school year. Students will work in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional media, including a 15-piece Sustained Investigation that focuses on a theme of personal interest to each student. To be successful in this course many of the art projects must be done outside of class. Outside work for this honors-level course typically requires a commitment of 3 hours or more per week. Students in this course are expected to submit the Advanced Placement Portfolio for college credit and/or advanced placement.
All AP Studio Art students are also encouraged to enroll in an additional art course in the fall semester of their senior year. Students interested in furthering their studies in Architecture, Graphic Design, or Fashion Design beyond high school are strongly encouraged to take as many art courses as possible to create a strong portfolio of work, which is needed for college applications.
Choose Your Direction:
The DRAWING portfolio is designated for work that focuses on the use of mark-making, line, surface, space, light and shade, and composition. Students should consider marks that can be used to make drawings, the arrangement of marks, the materials and processes used to make marks, and relationships of marks and ideas. Students can work with any materials, processes, and ideas. Drawing (analog and digital), painting, printmaking, and mixed media work are among the possibilities for submission.
The 2D DESIGN portfolio is designated for work that focuses on the use of two-dimensional (2-D) elements and principles of art and design, including point, line, shape, plane, layer, form, space, texture, color, value, opacity, transparency, time, unity, variety, rhythm, movement, proportion, scale, balance, emphasis, contrast, repetition, figure/ ground relationship, connection, juxtaposition, and hierarchy. Students should consider how materials, processes, and ideas can be used to make work that exists on a flat surface. Students can work with any materials, processes, and ideas. Graphic design, digital imaging, photography, collage, fabric design, weaving, fashion design, fashion illustration, painting, and printmaking are among the possibilities for submission.
The 3D DESIGN portfolio is designated for work that focuses on the use of three-dimensional (3-D) elements and principles of art and design, including point, line, shape, plane, layer, form, volume, mass, occupied/unoccupied space, texture, color, value, opacity, transparency, time, unity, variety, rhythm, movement, proportion, scale, balance, emphasis, contrast, repetition, connection, juxtaposition, and hierarchy. Students should consider how materials, processes, and ideas can be used to make work that involves space and form. Students can work with any materials, processes, and ideas. Figurative or non-figurative sculpture, architectural models, metal work, ceramics, glasswork, installation, performance, assemblage, and 3-D fabric/fiber arts are among the possibilities for submission.
The Exam
Students in this course are expected to submit the Advanced Placement Portfolio for college credit and/or advanced placement. The AP Studio Art program provides high school students with the opportunity to create portfolios of college-level work, which are submitted for evaluation at the end of the school year. The College Board reviews the portfolios from nationwide submissions. A panel of artists, college professors and high school art teachers evaluate the submitted work and rate it on a scale of 1 to 5 (The individual sections are scored from 1 to 6, but the overall score is recalibrated 1 to 5.). Qualifying portfolio scores enable students to earn college credit and/or advanced placement. Most colleges award academic credit equivalent to one freshman level studio art class for a portfolio that scores a 3 or higher.
Burlington High School’s AP Studio Art course focuses on skills needed for the AP Drawing, AP 2-D Art and Design portfolio, or AP 3-D Art and Design exams. The portfolio for any of these exams contains two required sections: Selected Works and Sustained Investigation. Each portfolio requires students to upload digital images and commentary, as well as actual artworks.
At the beginning of the school year, students enrolled in BHS’ AP Studio Art course will decide which exam (Drawing, 2-D Art and Design, or 3-D Art and Design) they will prepare for, and this will in turn guide their efforts for the year. The difference between the three portfolio exams is described below.:
The Drawing portfolio is intended to address a wide range of approaches and media. Line quality, light and shade, rendering of form, composition, surface manipulation, the illusion of depth, and mark-making are drawing issues that can be addressed through a variety of means, which could include painting, printmaking, mixed media, etc. Abstract, observational and inventive works may be submitted.
Design involves purposeful decision-making about using the elements and principles of art in an integrative way. In the 2-D Art and Design portfolio, you should demonstrate your understanding of design principles as applied to a two-dimensional surface. The principles of design (unity/variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale and figure/ground relationship) can be articulated through the visual elements (line, shape, color, value, texture, space). Any 2-D process or medium may be submitted, including, but not limited to, graphic design, digital imaging, photography, collage, fabric design, weaving, fashion design, illustration, painting, printmaking, etc.
In the 3-D Art and Design portfolio, you should demonstrate your understanding of design principles as applied to sculpture and other three-dimensional artwork. You will focus on artistic concepts including point, line, shape, plane, layer, form, volume, mass, occupied/unoccupied space, texture, color, value, opacity, transparency, time, unity, variety, rhythm, movement, proportion, scale, balance, emphasis, contrast, repetition, connection, juxtaposition, and hierarchy. Students should consider how materials, processes, and ideas can be used to make work that involves space and form. Students can work with any materials, processes, and ideas. Figurative or non-figurative sculpture, architectural models, metal work, ceramics, glasswork, installation, performance, assemblage, and 3-D fabric/fiber arts are among the possibilities for submission.
The Two Sections: Selected Works (Quality) and Sustained Investigation (Concentration):
This course encourages and expects a sustained critical and creative investigation in technical, formal and conceptual issues in drawing, 2-D design, or 3-D design.
Selected Works (5 actual artworks)
For this section, you will be submitting five actual artworks that demonstrate your mastery of drawing, 2-D design, or 3-D design issues. There is no preferred (or unacceptable) style or content. Your mastery of media and technique should be apparent in the concept, composition/design, and execution of your works, whether they are simple or complex.
2D Art and Design Portfolio: Five physical works or high-quality printed reproductions of physical works that each demonstrate synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas using 2-D art and design skills
or
Drawing Portfolio: Five physical works or high-quality printed reproductions of physical works that each demonstrate synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas using drawing skills
or
3D Art and Design Portfolio: Five physical works or high-quality printed reproductions of physical works that each demonstrate synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas using 2-D art and design skills
The College Board defines mastery as the ability to express concept, composition, and execution at a level of quality consistent with advanced art production. As this course is equivalent to a first year college art class, you will be expected to challenge yourself to produce and submit work of high quality.
This section of the AP Art and Design Portfolio Exams offers students the opportunity to make and present works of art and design with minimal constraints. Each work is expected to demonstrate skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. Students should carefully select works that best demonstrate their skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. The submission can be a group of related works, unrelated works, or a combination of related and unrelated works. These works may also be submitted in the Sustained Investigation section, but they don’t have to be. Along with each work, students are required to submit written responses to prompts about the work. Responses are evaluated along with the images that students submit. The most successful responses in terms of assessment are those that are clearly related to the images of work submitted, that directly and completely address the prompts, and that provide further evidence of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas shown in the work. Responses are not evaluated for correct spelling, grammar, or punctuation. There is no preferred (or unacceptable) material, process, idea, style, or content. Students should be the principal artist or designer of the work they submit. If work involved collaboration, the student submitting the work needs to have made all key decisions about materials, processes, and ideas used and needs to have performed the activities that produced the work.
REQUIREMENTS AND PROMPTS
Submit five works that demonstrate:
For each work, state the following in writing:
The most successful portfolio submissions will demonstrate:
Sustained Investigation (15 images, plus documentation of process)
This section requires 15 digital images of works of art and process documentation that demonstrate sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision.
For your sustained investigation (or concentration), you are asked to make a commitment to the thoughtful investigation of a specific visual idea. To document your process, you should present a number of conceptually related works that show your growth and discovery (For the 2-D and 3-D Design portfolios, these works should use the principles of design in an informed and/or experimental way.). It is important to define your concentration early in the year so that the work you submit will have the focus and direction required for a concentration. A written commentary describing what your concentration is and how it evolved must accompany the work in this section.
A sustained investigation is a body of work that:
This section of the AP Art and Design Portfolio Exams offers students the opportunity to make and present works of art and design based on an in-depth investigation of materials, processes, and ideas done over time. Sustained investigation is guided by questions. It involves practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas. The Sustained Investigation section is expected to demonstrate skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. Works from the Sustained Investigation section may also be submitted in the Selected Works section, but they don’t have to be. Along with each work, students are required to submit written responses to prompts about the work. Responses to these prompts are evaluated along with the images that students submit. The most successful responses in terms of assessment are those that are clearly related to the images of work submitted; that directly and completely address the prompts; and that provide evidence of inquiry-based sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision. Responses are not evaluated for correct spelling, grammar, or punctuation.
Before committing to your sustained investigation, you will write a proposal for a sustained investigation that you will present to the instructor and the class. The proposal will be your plan of action, and it will include a clear and concise description of the series of artworks, the media and methods you will be using, a schedule, and your objectives. Your peers, during discussion of your concept(s), may help you refine your concentration, to challenge you to go further, or, indeed, to rethink the concentration entirely.
There will be at least one process critique by your peers of your in-progress concentration.
There is no preferred (or unacceptable) basis of inquiry, type of investigation, or use of material, process, idea, style, or content for the Sustained Investigation. Students should be the principal artist or designer of the work they submit. If work involved collaboration, the student submitting the work needs to have made all key decisions about materials, processes, and ideas used and needs to have performed the activities that produced the work.
REQUIREMENTS AND PROMPTS
Submit 15 images that demonstrate:
State the following in writing:
Questions that guide the sustained investigation are typically formulated at the beginning of portfolio development. Students should formulate their questions based on their own experiences and ideas. These guiding questions should be documented and further developed by students throughout the sustained investigation.
Identify the following for each image:
For images that document process or show detail, students should enter “N/A” for size (see Additional Information About the Sustained Investigation Section on the following page for more details).
For digital and virtual work, students should enter the size of the intended visual display.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE SUSTAINED INVESTIGATION SECTION
Throughout their sustained investigation, students need to document—with images and words—practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas as well as skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. From their documentation of thinking and making, students select images and writing to include in their portfolio that most effectively demonstrate sustained investigation according to AP Art and Design Portfolio Exam assessment criteria. Process documentation images included in the portfolio should show evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas and/ or of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas, providing insight on students’ inquiry, thinking, and making. Detail images should be submitted only when it is important to see a close-up view of a work as evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision or of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. When submitting work for the Sustained Investigation section, students should carefully consider the sequence of their images. There is no required order; images should be presented to best demonstrate sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas. Students should also consider the relationship of their images with the written information they submit.
Sketchbook/Journal
You are expected to maintain an 11 x 14” sketchbook/journal throughout the course, in which you will include your visual ideas, notes (on your materials, processes, ideas, practice, experimentation, and revision), photos (for reference, inspiration, etc.), doodles, plans, short assignments, quick sketches, experiments with various techniques, and many of your homework assignments. You are expected to use it regularly. For the fullest benefit, it should be with you at all times.
Critiques and Journals
Critiques of in-class projects and homework are an important and regular part of the course. Usually weekly, mid-process on longer projects and after the completion of every major project, you will have the opportunity to analyze and discuss your own artwork and the work of your peers during oral group critiques. In these teacher-guided critiques, you will be challenged to explain how your work demonstrates your individual vision.
You will also be asked to write about your work, and in both the critiques and in your writing, you will be challenged to explain your ideas and your processes (demonstrating your Inquiry and Investigation); to describe how you have Practiced, Experimented, and Revised as you worked, and to Reflect on the process, on the success of your visual communication, and on the quality of the final work. You will also critique the work of your peers, querying, commenting, and challenging each other to do stronger and stronger work. In addition to the critiques and your writing, the instructor will discuss your work with you and provide feedback at least every few days. Upon request, you may receive further individualized instruction and assessment during the instructor’s prep periods and after school.
Course Timeline - Assignment Due Dates 2023-2024
AP Studio Art Summer Work 2023
http://bhsportfolio.weebly.com/current-assignments/ap-studio-art-summer-work-2020
DUE the first Friday of the new school year.
Summer Assignments weigh 30% of the Quarter 1 grade.
Art materials are to be returned to school at the beginning of the school year.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Summer work is an essential part of the AP Studio Art course. Summer assignments help alleviate the pressure during the school year of producing the many quality pieces needed for a successful portfolio. During the summer prior to the AP school year, you are expected to complete twenty sketches and six art assignments (listed below) in the media of your choice, which will all be due on the first day of the school year. Completing more of these pieces than required will only put you that much further ahead when school starts. Consider each piece’s potential for inclusion in your portfolio for the AP exam, and invest the time and effort necessary to produce high quality work. In addition to the sketches and six assignments, you must visit an art museum (online if they are still closed) and document the experience in your sketchbook.
SKETCHBOOK (20+ Sketches)
Your sketchbook should be one of your “best friends” this summer. Carry it with you as much as you can, everywhere! Open it up first thing in the morning and last thing at night and many times in between. Draw in it, write in it, scribble in it, paint in it, glue things into it, cut the pages, tear the pages, change the way it looks to make it look like your own book. At the end of the summer it should reflect YOU and your experiences throughout the summer. Work in your sketchbook is an ongoing process that will help you make informed and critical decisions about the progress of your work. Your sketchbook is the perfect place to try a variety of concepts and techniques as you develop your own voice and style.
In addition to using your sketches to plan your projects, you must complete 20 sketches and spend approximately 30 minutes on each. Sketchbooks should display forethought, good composition, good craftsmanship, and have mature subject matter (avoid trite, overused symbols). These sketchbook assignments should be finished drawings (Sometimes pieces for the Breadth section of the AP Exam come from sketchbooks.). Some of your drawings will focus on line quality, while others will focus on a full range of tonal value and good contrast, and still others will concentrate on subtle color shifts.
If there are drawings in your sketchbook that are outstanding, they may be used in your AP Portfolio Exam.
Guidelines for working in your sketchbook:
Here are some ideas for what to draw in your sketchbook. Choose from this list or create your own ideas for your 20 or more sketches.
MUSEUM VISIT
Refer to the list of museums on the Resources page of the Art Department’s website (www.burlingtonhighschoolart.org). Visit one of them. Take your sketchbook.
Visit one of these museums (There are also other museum options on the Collections page of Google Arts & Culture):
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA Boston)
Harvard Art Museums
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
The Museum of Modern Art
The Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Complete these three activities:
a. In your sketchbook, describe the experience of the museum visit. What are the first things that you notice when you walk in the front doors? What do you notice about the space, the environment? Describe what you see and feel and why that has caught your attention. Be as specific as possible.
b. In your sketchbook, write a full page (in essay form, not notes) about two different artists’ paintings of the same subject matter. Compare and contrast approaches. Use the 4-step critique process when evaluating the works: Describe the work in detail, then Analyze it (i.e. what do you notice about composition, color theory, the use of the principles of design, technique, etc.), Interpret (What does it mean? Why did the artist make the choices he/she did?), and Judge/Evaluate (What works about it? What doesn't?) Write one paragraph for each of those four steps.
c. Draw full-value thumbnail sketches of both artworks. Your thumbnail drawings should indicate dark, middle and light tones to truly capture the basic composition of each, but will not focus on detail. These should be good (but small) compositional drawings.
SUSTAINED INVESTIGATION IDEAS
You are asked to make a commitment to the thoughtful investigation of a specific visual idea.
A sustained investigation is a body of work that:
Generate a list of at least ten different GREAT possibilities for your senior-year Sustained Investigation series. Describe each idea in a few sentences (NOT just a few words -- be thoughtful about it.), being clear on what your main objective(s) will be. Each of these ten ideas should really be something you’d love to do for two months or more. Each idea would be for a series of at least fifteen pieces. Do not try to complete the list in one sitting. Think about it over time and develop the ideas, don’t just list them. Turn this in as a TYPED document.
Before beginning:
Look at the work of contemporary artists to get a sense of the wide variety of concepts and approaches being used today. You can find many contemporary artists by going to the PBS website for its Art21 program at http://www.pbs.org/art21/ .
Also, view sample Sustained Investigation portfolios of previous AP students at the following links:
Drawing
Anna Perl - digital submission (2022)
Jack Giles - digital submission (2021)
Michela Giordano - digital submission (2021)
Anne Zhang - sustained investigation
Irina Grigoryeva - sustained investigation (2014)
Pablo Aguilar - AP exam (2013)
Jake Ursino - AP Sustained Investigation (2013)
Kevin Buxton - AP Art Show (2020)
Nicole Benjamin - AP Art Show (2020)
Sarah Schissler - AP Art Show (2020)
Martello Cesar - AP portfolio exam (2019)
Marley Gainley - AP exam (2017)
2D Design
Reece McLean - digital submission (2022)
Danielle Spinosa - AP exam (2013)
3D Design
Kevin Mudoola - digital submission (2021)
Sample portfolios are at the BOTTOM of these pages:
Drawing
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-drawing/portfolio?course=ap-drawing
(Scroll down to Drawing Sustained Investigation Samples and Commentary and Additional Sample Portfolios.)
2D Design
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-2-d-art-and-design/portfolio?course=ap-2-d-art-and-design
(Scroll down to 2D Design Sustained Investigation Samples and Commentary and Additional Sample Portfolios.)
3D Design
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-3-d-art-and-design/portfolio?course=ap-3-d-art-and-design
(Scroll down to 3D Design Sustained Investigation Samples and Commentary and Additional Sample Portfolios.)
Here is what your concentration list might look like: Concentration Ideas Samples.
ART PROJECTS
Complete at least 5 of these. You may contact Mr. Ratkevich in advance to discuss possibilities if you would like to do something that is not listed here. The assignments below are mostly Drawing or 2D Art & Design options. If you wish to do 3D Art & Design, we will work out alternatives. All of these are to be NEW works, created from June - August 2021. Each should take several hours to complete to AP Portfolio Quality.:
1. “Café” Drawings – (This is in addition to the sketches/sketchbook assignment listed above.)
Take your sketchbook to a good location for observing people: the mall, a café, the beach, etc.
Try to capture your family members “at rest”, in natural states, not posing for you. What do people look like in their most relaxed or natural states?
Fill up several pages (at least four) with multiple drawings of people on each page. You should have AT LEAST ten good figure sketches. Try to capture people in their natural habitats and in activities that are relatively stable: reading, eating, waiting in line, etc. (Do not have people knowingly pose for you.). Capture the entire figures as much as possible. Indicate their environments as much as possible.
Some artists to view/study before doing this assignment (Look them up, specifically looking for “figure sketches”:
Honore Daumier
Edgar Degas
examples of cafe sketches
“Cafe” sketches by Martello Cesar, BHS Class of 2019:
Pages 1 & 2
Pages 3 & 4
2. Multi-Figure Narrative – Make an artwork that tells some type of a “story”, perhaps a moment from a personal memoir; or a scene from a story you’ve previously written; or an episode from history. It should have several human figures interacting with each other and with their surroundings. It may be a drawing, a painting, or a mixed media artwork if you have the materials. It can even be three-dimensional. Focus on pictorial composition, considering the principles of art and art concepts such as the implied triangle. You may make it up entirely, or have people pose for you (recommended), or you may use photographic references (especially if you take the photos yourself.), but it should not be a copy of a single photograph or copy another artwork in any way. The figures may be stylized rather than realistic if you choose.
Some artists to look at before doing the Multi-Figure Narrative (Look them up in Google Arts & Culture: Explore. These are in chronological order.).:
Caravaggio
Francisco Goya (particularly The Caprices and The Third of May, 1808)
Auguste Renoir (particularly The Boating Party Lunch)
Edgar Degas: The Dance Lesson
Mary Cassatt (particularly The Boating Party)
Max Beckmann
Marc Chagall
Norman Rockwell
Jacob Lawrence
Romare Bearden
Jack Levine
Chris Van Allsburg (children’s book illustrator: Jumanji and The Polar Express)
Jake Ursino, BHS Class of 2013: At the Music Festival
Jake Ursino’s AP Sustained Investigation
Irina Grigoryeva, BHS Class of 2014: Save Our Oceans
Multi-figure narrative by Martello Cesar, BHS Class of 2019: My Future
Multi-figure narrative by Martello Cesar, BHS Class of 2019: Chess
3. Abstract Painting – Create a painting that utilizes the principles of art to maximize visual impact. Consider color theory (In fact, study the color relationships in the paintings of the artists below, and use their color palettes or some thoughtful variation.). This is an abstract or non-objective artwork. If you are not satisfied with your first attempt, keep trying until you’ve created something you want to hang on your wall. Work until you impress yourself.
Some artists to view/study before doing this assignment:
Wassily Kandinsky
Kazimir Malevich
Paul Klee
Franz Marc
Pablo Picasso
Joan Miro
Jackson Pollock
Jasper Johns
Frank Stella
Sonia Delauney
Miriam Schapiro
4. Landscape – This is observational (from life, not a photo). Make a painting of an interesting place other than your home; a vacation spot would be a good choice. The illusion of three-dimensional space should be a major concern. Consider atmospheric (aerial) perspective and, if relevant, linear perspective. If you choose a location far from home, watercolor may be a good medium to use because of its portability, but the medium is up to you. Suggestion: Do a series of thumbnail sketches to work out the composition. Work from life, not from photographs. Make every effort to work plein air – meaning drawing or painting outdoors. You will have better light and will be able to focus on the color you actually see.
Some artists to view/study before doing this assignment (Look them up, specifically looking for “landscape painting”):
J.M.W. Turner
Claude Monet
Vincent Van Gogh
Paul Gauguin
5. Still Life – Using the color medium of your choice, paint a still life comprised of at least three visually interesting objects. Work large (at least 18 x 24”). Build a strong composition. Observational accuracy is key; notice the relationships between shapes, both positive and negative. Notice subtle color changes. Mix colors with specificity and accuracy. Establish form via chiaroscuro and color changes. Demonstrate your ability to create a rich range of tonal value.
Helpful Resources: Before doing the assignment, look at / study as many still lifes by master paintings as you can, and apply what you know about placement, composition, lighting, form, texture, etc. If there are complex surfaces, inscribed of printed patterns, textures, etc., all the better.
Some artists to view/study before doing this assignment (Look them up, specifically looking for “still life”):
Paul Cezanne
William Harnett
Vincent Van Gogh
Wayne Thiebaud
Ralph Goings
Rebecca Scott
Janet Fish
Dik F. Liu
Here are a few painters to look at to inform your still life work. If working in color, pay attention to the nuances/shifts in color even within the same surfaces/planes. Also remember that every change in direction (every plane) will have a shift in value and in color temperature. Typically, shadows will be cooler in color (bluer) and where the light hits will be warmer (more yellow, orange, or red), but not always.
Dik Liu
https://www.dikliu.com/food
https://www.dikliu.com/trolls
Catherine Kehoe (teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design)
https://catherinekehoe.com/still-life/1
The packaged still lifes of Janet Fish will give you some ideas of how to paint transparent plastic.
Look at some of the work of Wayne Thiebaud, especially the slot machines, cash register, paint buckets, and gumball machine paintings he has done.
Still life paintings of Paul Cezanne, who painted in the 19th century. Pay particular attention to how he addresses the wall and cloth around the still life; how color and value change.
For a more emotionally expressive way of painting, and more playful brushwork, look at the still life paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. Color is amped up in these.
Also, explore the work of Luis Melendez, a fantastic still life painter from 18th Century Spain. The link will bring you to the collection of his work at the Prado museum in Spain, but you can also see more of his work if you look him up in sites for our National Gallery in DC, at Boston's MFA, and probably in the Google Arts & Culture site that I've been plugging for the past several weeks.
6. After developing your ten ideas for a potential Sustained Investigation (See assignment above.), complete one or two Sustained Investigation “Try-Outs” to AP Portfolio quality.
7. Dissection -- A drawing study of an object that you have taken apart. Arrange the parts on a surface with other objects related or not related and study the TEXTURAL qualities. Arrange them to make a strong composition: design the page. Some ideas would be a mechanical object, a child’s toy, a makeup bag, your bin of art supplies, ingredients for a cooking recipe, a few apples or other fruit cut apart…anything where you are creating a still composition out of something that has been dissected or disassembled.
8. A self portrait expressing a mood. How can you use value, color, style, and design to express mood? What style will work best for you in this work? This can be observational, but it doesn’t have to be. You might create a composition with multiple self-portraits with different expressions and/or from different angles. Do some research online (Google Arts and Culture, for example) to see how different artists create what might be considered self portraits and what techniques and media they use. Use an odd/extreme angle and consider strong light/dark contrast. The idea is to create a deeply personal artwork that reflects feeling.
Some artists to look at:
9. Still life arrangement of three or more reflective objects. Your goal is to convey convincing representation. Sketch and shade for contrast and drama. Consider doing this as a self portrait – draw yourself distorted in a shiny object.
10. A drawing of an unusual interior – for example, look inside a closet or cabinet, in the refrigerator, under the car’s hood or inside the medicine cabinet.
11. A still life arrangement of objects representing members of your family. You must have at least three objects and use an unusual viewpoint or angle. Put the objects on the floor and stand up looking down at them, or on a table surface and look down and across at them (Include a photographic snapshot of your set-up when you turn in your final piece.).
12. A close up of a bicycle/tricycle from an unusual angle with strong light/shadow. Don’t draw the bicycle from the side view.
13. Shoes -- Create a still life arrangement consisting of your family members’ shoes: more than a single pair; at least two or three pairs. Arrange them to overlap each other and to fill the picture plane. Try to convey the different personalities of your family members through the rendering of the shoes. Be creative and have fun! This assignment can be done in monochrome (black, white, gray) and/or in color using any medium, technique and style you desire.
14. Create an artwork regarding a political or social issue you feel strongly about. There are many different ways to protest, to reach an audience, to make a difference. Before you begin the art, write a statement out in detail to develop your ideas. Spend some time on this; get to the heart of how you feel and what you believe. Draw thumbnail sketches to compose your image before beginning the final artwork. Use content, color, design, and style to maximize the emotional expressiveness of your piece. CLARITY in your visual statement is essential.
Before beginning, view this Mural slideshow originally made for the Tenacity Challenge. It includes masterworks, student examples, and tips to get started.
15. Using the media of your choice, design a CD cover for an imaginary musician or group, or for a local band that you might even know personally. It must be totally original (No copies of someone else’s photographs). It should include the band’s name and an album title in addition to the artwork.
16. Create a fully-realized artwork that illustrates a scene from a book (a novel or children’s story). Research contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley’s work, Rembrandt’s many biblical scenes, and the work of children’s book illustrators Maurice Sendak and Jan Brett.
17. You may try your hand at one of these Concentration Ideas Samples.
18. Take on one of the more unusual challenges from the TV show Project Runway.
19. Create an article of clothing/fashion that is also a sculpture.
20. Steam Punk
21. Bring your Spring “Pathways” project to a level of detailed refinement.
II. Successful Learning
III. 21st Century Learning Expectations
Consistent with the school’s mission and 21st Century Learning Skills, Art & Design students are engaged in modes of artistic and creative expression and critical thinking every day. They are presented with extensive opportunities for growth in creating, presenting, responding, and connecting. Students are encouraged to develop skills that teach them accountability, adaptability and tenacity in their academic, social, and civic interactions. Students will work both independently and collaboratively to solve artistic and conceptual problems, acquiring skills to generate their own questions and investigate independent topics of interest related to the concepts being taught. They will synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art, and they will convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work. Students will apply a variety of problem-solving strategies, which may involve generating and conceptualizing artistic ideas through writing or brainstorming; organizing and developing these ideas through drafting, revising, and refining for presentation; working spontaneously and experimentally; and processing feedback from peers.
Students will participate in a classroom environment where they are nurtured to act with integrity in all academic endeavors and to exhibit respect for themselves and empathy for others. They will learn to speak honestly and respectfully to classmates and respect their opinions in discussions and in group critiques of student work. They will interpret meaning and intent in artistic work, and they will use the vocabulary of art in a way that demonstrates informed, critical decision-making, applying criteria to evaluate artistic work. They will exhibit responsible citizenship by maintaining their tools and work space; assisting and serving as resources for classmates; and considering the relevance of art in a local, global and digital society. Students will relate their artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding, studying the work of famous artists and artwork from different cultures and eras.
As a student in this course, you will be expected to:
These expectations align with the school’s mission statement.
IV. Expected Outcomes
By the completion of this course, the successful student will be able to:
V. Topics/ Content
Throughout the course, you will be involved in:
Main Topics of Discussion and Skill-Building:
Essential Questions:
Schedule:
Starting Out
Course Expectations
AP Requirements and the AP Exam
Quality - What’s it look like?
Presentation and critique of summer work – ALL summer work is due the first week of the school year.
The importance of:
The importance of keeping a sketchbook
Good Art: Aesthetics, Art History, Applied Arts, and the Relevance of Art Today
The Future:
Careers in the Visual Arts;
Presentations by Art School Representatives
Fall and Early Winter
BREADTH AND QUALITY (for SELECTED WORKS)
Throughout the fall and early winter, you will continue to build your skills in several of the following areas, previously studied in the Studio Art Honors III course. You will build on your knowledge and understanding of the content from that course as you develop more advanced, complex, personal and more independent work.
During the fall, you will also be challenged in outside assignments to generate and develop possibilities to try out for your later Sustained Investigation.
In both the Selected Works and the Sustained Investigation “Try-Outs”, you will Inquire and Investigate; Practice, Experiment, and Revise; Communicate through and about your art work, and Reflect on your processes and success.
The Place: Interior and Exterior Spaces
How does an artist use places/spaces as reference sources for more personal and masterly art?
The Thing: Objects as Starting Points (including things from the natural world)
How does an artist use objects as reference/starting points for more personal and masterly art?
The Face: Portraiture and Facial Expression
How do I use the human head as a reference/starting point for more personal and masterly art?
The Body: Figurative Art
How do I use the human figure as a reference/starting point for more personal and masterly art?
The Design: Pictorial Composition and Color Theory; Abstraction
The Media: Exploration of Art Materials and Techniques
Throughout the fall and winter, to help you develop enough a rich and varied body of work to choose from for the Selected Works section of the exam, you will maintain an exploratory attitude in using many of the following materials and techniques:
Media (Materials and Techniques) in the Drawing track may include:
In addition to the above, media in the 2-D Art and Design track may include:
Media in the 3D Art and Design track may include:
The different methods and materials will be used at various points throughout the year. For example, during the unit on interiors and exteriors, students may begin by drawing a landscape from observation in pencil in their sketchbooks. They may later use charcoal for a larger drawing of an interior, then do a series of small landscape paintings in watercolor, a difficult medium that requires much practice to control well. Students may return to any of those materials in approaching the problems posed in the unit on stylization and abstraction, or they may use other methods. For the unit entitled “The Media”, we will work with one or two more involved processes. That may be reductive printmaking, or mixed media involving drawing, acrylic paint and collage, or scratchboard illustration, or something else. For your Sustained Investigation, you may choose to focus on the mastery of one medium or technique, or you may approach your topic with a variety of methods.
November – January
DOCUMENTATION AND DISPLAY
Making a Slide Portfolio, Applying to Art Programs, Preparing for Exhibitions
January/February - April:
SUSTAINED INVESTIGATION
The Sustained Investigation section shows the student's in-depth exploration of a particular design concern. It is presented as 15 images, some of which may be details of work or documentation of process. Students will submit images and writing to document their inquiry-guided investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision. The emphasis is on a coherent development of an idea through a body of work, in addition to the artistic success of the work.
Late April:
The Exhibition: Organizing an Art Show
How does an artist best present his/her actual work in an art exhibition?
The Presentation
How do I make an effective presentation of my portfolio to an audience?
The Exam
Organizing, Documenting and Submitting your Portfolio to the College Board
May (Post-Exam):
Collaboration / Public Art: Mural Painting or Some Other Collaborative Work (A Group Effort)
What are the steps and considerations in making a large-scale public work?
We plan to schedule at least one field trip to an art museum during the year.
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Ongoing:
Throughout the entire year, you will be involved in:
We describe what these look like in these next sections.:
Inquiry and Investigation
AP Studio Art provides opportunities for you to practice and develop the skills of Skill 1: Inquiry and Investigation through portfolio development, as outlined in the AP Course and Exam Description.
In the AP summer work, students have the opportunity to research how the materials, processes, and ideas they’re interested in have been used by other artists, designers, and makers. They do this through visits to museums, through online research, and by pouring through books and magazines. By comparing the works of two masters in a museum, for example, they describe, interpret, and investigate materials, processes, and ideas.
Students create a “scrapbook” section in their sketchbooks in which they collect and paste images they find inspiring and possibly influential for their own future independent art projects, which may or may not be related to a series. They write notes on these works and label them. They choose one or two of these images to discuss with the class. In their notes and in sharing verbally, they identify why they are personally drawn to the work.
Beginning in the summer prior to the AP Studio Art course, students view and discuss the Sustained Investigation portfolios of their predecessors in the course. During the summer, they are challenged to develop a list of ten different possibilities for their own Sustained Investigation series, to describe each idea in a few sentences, being clear on their main objectives for each idea. Before drafting the list, students are encouraged to look at the work of contemporary artists to get a sense of the wide variety of concepts and approaches being used today by their own research and by visiting websites such as the Art21 program at http://www.pbs.org/art21/ . Students have the opportunity to choose as one of their summer assignments a “try-out” of one of their ideas, and also to attempt one or more of the Sustained Investigation prompts of previous AP students. We discuss these ideas when we return to the classroom in September, and discuss any efforts made to realize a work from one of the ideas. We talk about difficulties and successes in pairing certain media and processes with certain ideas.
As outside assignments for several weeks throughout the fall, students do additional Sustained Investigation “try-outs” based on their list, and in critique discuss the process, results, and potential for a true Sustained Investigation.
Before committing to their Sustained Investigation in the late winter, students write a one-page proposal for the series and present it to the class. The class discusses the strengths and potential pitfalls of the ideas.
Throughout the late winter and spring, students create one or two fully-realized pieces each week for their Sustained Investigation, or revisions/reworking/replacements of older pieces, refining submissions considered weaker (based on feedback and reflection) and filling in gaps.
Typically once a week, students gather as a group for dialog about their work, often outside work and sometimes work in progress. Each student presents and discusses their current work to date with the entire class. They discuss materials, processes, and ideas they’re using to make work and receive constructive feedback from peers and their teacher. Feedback is provided through discussion and/or note-taking on comments related to specific portfolio requirements (such as evidence of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas; practice, experimentation, and revision; inquiry). Students are encouraged to write or otherwise record the feedback about their work to inform ongoing thinking and making.
Practice, Experimentation, and Revision
AP Studio Art provides opportunities for you to practice and develop your skills in Skill 2: Making through Practice, Experimentation, and Revision through portfolio development, as outlined in the AP Course and Exam Description.
Throughout the fall and early winter, students build upon knowledge, skills and understandings in areas they had previously studied in the Studio Art Honors III course as they develop more advanced, complex, personal, and independent work. As we spend a great deal of time in each area, it affords us the opportunity to take a “deep dive” into the subject and to approach the subject using different materials and techniques.
For example, in figurative art-making, by studying the structure of the human figure, anatomy, gesture, three-dimensionality (“form”) through the use of tonal value, figure/ground relationships, and expressiveness, students consider from a number of perspectives how to use the human figure as a reference or starting point for more personal art. With the practice of repeatedly drawing the figure in life using models in different poses and for different lengths of time, concentrating on different aspects of figure drawing, and using a number of different materials, student work becomes more skillful and confident.
In many cases, after a visual problem or design challenge is defined by either the instructor or the student, to solve the problem the student will work through a process of brainstorming and developing ideas, thumbnail sketches, compositional variations and color studies, full-sized rough drafts, and experimentation with materials. At various points in the process, the work will be presented to others for feedback, after which further development and revision will occur. Students are always encouraged to return to previous artworks with newly gained skill, knowledge, and understanding, and with consideration of feedback from peers and instructor, to revise and improve their work.
You will document your thinking and making both in writing and visually, photographing drafts and stages of progress. By reviewing your sketchbooks with peers and the instructor, we will appreciate how practice, experimentation, and revision have guided you in your work, and how over time you have investigated and explored materials, processes, and ideas.
Communication and Reflection
AP Studio Art provides opportunities for you to practice and develop your skills in Skill 3: Communication and Reflection through portfolio development, as outlined in the AP Course and Exam Description.
Critiques of in-class projects and homework are an important and regular part of the course. Usually weekly, mid-process on longer projects and after the completion of every major project, you will have the opportunity to analyze and discuss your own artwork and the work of your peers during oral group critiques. In these teacher-guided critiques, you will be challenged to explain how your work demonstrates your individual vision, you will discuss how your work and the work of your peers demonstrate synthesis of materials, process, and ideas, and you will share your views on the skillfulness and quality of the work.
You will also be asked to write about your work, in your journals or digitally using Google Docs, and in both the critiques and in your writing you will be challenged to describe your use of the materials and explain your processes and ideas (demonstrating your Inquiry and Investigation); to describe how you have Practiced, Experimented, and Revised as you were guided by questions, and to Reflect on the process, on the success of your visual communication, and on the quality of the final work. You will also critique the work of your peers, querying, commenting, and challenging each other to create stronger and stronger work. In addition to the critiques and your writing, the instructor will discuss your work with you and provide feedback at least every few days. Upon request, you may receive further individualized instruction and assessment during the instructor’s prep periods and after school.
After brainstorming and developing possibilities for your Sustained Investigation and “trying out” some of those potential series through the creation of individual pieces, you will write a proposal/intention for your Sustained Investigation that answers the following:
Upon completion of your Sustained Investigation, you will return to those questions again in an essay for the AP exam in which you also describe how your Sustained Investigation shows evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by your inquiry or questions
Documenting Your Work; Available Technology
Documenting your work is an essential part of the AP Studio Art course, and for the AP exam.
To document your work, to prepare final work for sharing with others, and to create a digital portfolio, all AP Studio Art students have access to the classroom’s digital SLR camera, tripod, and black backdrop, as well as to the large-format scanner (capable of scanning images as large as 11 x 17”, including your sketchbook work). There are also computers available in the Art Department’s Mac lab next door.
All art students have a named-user license for Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes Photoshop, for photo-editing as well as for creating new digital graphics. You can install the programs on one home computer as well as long as you are enrolled in the class, and the license allows for Photoshop for iPad.
With these resources, you will learn to:
On occasion, you will be assigned short, open-ended digital art and design challenges, and students in the 2-D Art & Design track may even create the majority of their artwork using the software.
You will organize your image files in Google Docs and share with the instructor and/or your peers using Google Docs or Google Classroom.
We will regularly use the Apple TV display in the Art Department office to share our work in its digital format, discussing your materials, processes and ideas and how the work relates to specific AP portfolio requirements.
You will be encouraged to share your best practices for using cell phone cameras and free editing apps to make quality images of works and document your process. Students participating remotely join in discussions through Google Meet.
References and Resources:
Students are encouraged to investigate a variety of creative art and design resources to enhance their aesthetic understanding and generate possibilities for investigation. You can do this by digging into the large collection of art reproductions in our classroom, through books and magazines, visits to museums, and online. Visiting the websites of particular artists and designers can provide an in-depth understanding of influences, inspiration, and process. We will often refer to, read from, and view and discuss artwork from Google Arts & Culture, where there is so much to see! Try the “Explore” button, where you can use the Art Camera to zoom into famous master paintings, experience culture in 360 degrees, and tour the world’s greatest museums and other landmarks using “Street View”. Or choose categories to discover the most well-known artists and masterworks in history.
In the art room, you can access an extensive collection of art magazines going back decades, as well as a small but rich library of books on art history, contemporary art, illustration and other applied arts. Students will engage with a wide variety of potential sources of inspiration for portfolio development, including print and digital art and design magazines such as:
The course will also present regular in-class screenings of short videos on contemporary artists and designers from sources such as Art 21: Art in the 21st Century, TED.com: Visual Art, and PBS Learning Media: Visual Art, as well as the occasional longer documentary film.
ONLINE RESOURCES
We will dig into many of the resources below in class, but I encourage you to explore them on your own as well.
Visit the BPS Art Website Resources Page at https://bpsk12art.weebly.com/remote-learning--enrichment.html
AP College Board website:
AP Drawing (Homepage):
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-drawing?course=ap-drawing
AP 2D Design (Homepage):
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-2-d-art-and-design?course=ap-2-d-art-and-design
AP 3D Design (Homepage):
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-3-d-art-and-design?course=ap-3-d-art-and-design
Sample portfolios are at the BOTTOM of these pages:
Drawing
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-drawing/portfolio?course=ap-drawing
(Scroll down to sample portfolios and scoring rationales.)
2D Design
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-2-d-art-and-design/portfolio?course=ap-2-d-art-and-design
(Scroll down to sample portfolios and scoring rationales.)
3D Design
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-3-d-art-and-design/portfolio?course=ap-3-d-art-and-design
(Scroll down to sample portfolios and scoring rationales.)
Arts Enrichment
Art Museums
Visit in person or explore from home:
Art Magazines
Arts Organizations
Planning for Your Future
Art Careers
Here's a partial list of art careers in which you might be interested.
College Search
Research post-secondary art programs:
Here are the most recent rankings for the best art schools in the country, according to US News and World Report. These are a list of graduate schools; the non-graduate art schools themselves should be ranked similarly but are not exactly the same. If you click on the name of the school, that should bring you to that school's website. From there I would check their admissions pages and even call a counselor to ask about what they're looking for in a portfolio.
Weekend and Summer Programs for Young Artists
Investigate the opportunities
Videos
On Netflix:
On Amazon Prime Video
If your family already has a membership with Amazon Prime, there are so many movies and shows on art that are available that it’s impossible to list them all. Here are a few good starting points:
On Hoopla
Members of the Burlington Public Library have access to Hoopla, an ebook and streaming service.
An artist's identity and experiences implicitly inform, and in some cases even drive, the work they create. Whether bringing attention to important issues that news headlines omit, or celebrating the history and heroes that brought us to our present moment, the artists in this playlist expand and illuminate the conversations we have around bias, race, and representation.
Skill Development Challenges
Virtual Instructor
A six-day set of lessons, including videos, on getting better at observational drawing
Art Dares
VI. Assessing Progress
Types of Assessment:
Your grade will be based primarily on the portfolio of work for the quarter (approx. 80%) (depending on duration and level of difficulty, each project may weigh from 5% to 25% of the term grade), and homework (usually 3-5% for each assignment).
Grading Criteria:
May include:
You generally will be graded on a combination of concept, design, technical quality, and personal investment/work habits. Although we reference the art department’s general grading rubric, you are at a level in your art education where the rubric will need to be modified for many projects based on the independent, individualized nature of your artistic investigations. In these cases, you will be graded on how well you met the objectives agreed upon by you and Mr. Ratkevich.
These are the tools we use to measure your success:
Bear in mind, you are in the equivalent of a first year college course. Your work will be assessed as such.
Self-Assessment: Critiques and Journals
Two important ways your work will be assessed is through self-assessment and peer-assessment. Critiques of in-class projects and homework are an important and regular part of the course. Usually weekly, mid-process on longer projects and certainly after every project, you will have the opportunity to analyze and discuss your own artwork and the work of your peers during oral group critiques. In these teacher-guided critiques, you will be challenged to explain how your work demonstrates your individual vision. You will also be asked to write about your work, and in both the critiques and in your writing, you will be challenged to explain your ideas and your processes (demonstrating your Inquiry and Investigation); to describe how you have Practiced, Experimented, and Revised as you worked, and to Reflect on the process, on the success of your visual communication, and on the quality of the final work. You will also critique the work of your peers, querying, commenting, and challenging each other to do stronger and stronger work. In addition to the critiques and your writing, the instructor will discuss your work with you and provide feedback at least every few days. Upon request, you may receive further individualized instruction and assessment during the instructor’s prep periods and after school.
VII. Classroom Expectations
Artistic Integrity and Plagiarism
As in all other courses in our school, no form of cheating or plagiarism will be tolerated. For any infraction of cheating or plagiarism (including the first), the student will receive a zero on the assignment or assessment, and parents/guardians will be notified, as per the student handbook. The definition of plagiarism is “to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one's own.” Please note that plagiarism includes all forms of stealing words or ideas, including copying from books, web sites, or each other.
So what does this look like in the art room?
The benefits and desirability of working from direct observation and direct personal experience will be stressed throughout the course, and many of our class projects will be focused on working “from life” to help build your skills and understanding in this area. Artwork is to be unique and original. Images produced by others (drawings, paintings, even photographs) are the property of those artists and cannot be claimed as your own. There are however special circumstances that govern the use of “appropriated images”, and these we will discuss as issues present themselves, but before you turn in a project that includes them. According to the Ethics, Artistic Integrity, and Plagiarism statement from the AP Course and Exam Description: “Any work that makes use of (appropriates) photographs, published images, and/or the work of someone else must show substantial and significant development beyond duplication. This is demonstrated through manipulation of the materials, processes, and/or ideas of the source. The student’s individual vision should be clearly evident. It is unethical, constitutes plagiarism, and often violates copyright law simply to copy someone else’s work or imagery (even in another medium) and represent it as one’s own.”
Our rule of thumb is: ask or discuss before you turn in work that uses images not created by your own hand. In general, use of these “pre-existing images” (such as a drawn copy of a professional photograph) would not be acceptable.
Artistic integrity is something we will discuss throughout the course. You will be expected to explain how your work shows your individual vision in discussions with the instructor, with your peers, in regular critiques, and in writing. In these discussions, in your journal entries, and in other regular documentation of your creative processes, you will be challenged to identify and describe your sources of inspiration, your influences, and how you have used them to make something truly your own. We will look at a number of artists (such as Andy Warhol and Kehinde Wiley) who have appropriated the images or styles of others in a transformative way to convey personal and truly unique messages, or artists who have portrayed the same subject, or even worked side-by-side (such as Van Gogh and Gauguin) to paint the same subjects from observation with strikingly different results. We will look at works by artists who have clearly modelled their own work on the compositions of older masters, but with results that are distinctly their own. We will consider how appropriated images become transformed in the service of those artists’ personal visions. We will think about how these types of scenarios might play out in our own thinking and making, as with painting from the same model, painting from the same still life, or “modernizing”,personalizing, or otherwise transforming the composition of one of the Old Masters.
In critiques, in check-ins and informal discussions, in your sketchbook and journal, citing sources of inspiration will be an essential part of our dialogue as well as of your documentation of your processes. You are encouraged to keep a “scrapbook” section in your sketchbook, pasting in your influences and inspirations with notes.
VIII. Homework/Make-up Policy
Completing class projects by the due dates will likely require you to work on your projects outside of class. This is in addition to your regular homework assignments and your maintenance of a sketchbook/journal for independent drawing, brainstorming of ideas, and concept development.
The deadlines for your self-designed projects (such as for your Sustained Investigation) will be worked out between you and Mr. Ratkevich.
In the event of a long absence, you will be given time equivalent to the number of days absent to make up the work, unless you request an extension well before the due date, and it is approved by the instructor.
You will likely not be given extensions for work missed due to family vacations outside of the school calendar.
IX. Technology Policy
Students should refer to the acceptable use policy in the student handbook regarding technology. The iPad should only be used for taking notes during lectures, referencing images and resources for studio work, art-making, documentation, and tasks assigned by the teacher. Games and social networking apps are not permitted during class time. Cell phones are not permitted to be used in the classroom unless approved by the instructor.
X. Additional Information
I encourage students to seek extra help whenever they feel they are falling behind. I will always arrange a time to sit down with you if you ask.
Please feel free to contact me at school: 781.273.7024 (the art dept. office), or by e-mail at [email protected].
I almost always arrive at the school by 7 am. I can usually be found in Rooms 211, 213 (the art office), or 215.
What you will need:
Calendar
AP Website
For the latest information about AP Studio Art, visit AP Central (apcentral.collegeboard.com).
My Teaching Pages: burlingtonhighschoolart.weebly.com
My Teaching Pages: burlingtonhighschoolart.weebly.com (Scroll down to the lower left of BHS Art homepage for AP course.)
AP Central Website: apcentral.collegeboard.com
AP Central: Art and Design Course and Exam Description, Effective Fall 2023
Burlington High School Art Department
2023-2024 School Year
Teacher: G. Ratkevich
Course Title: (AP) Advanced Placement Studio Art
Course Number: 516
Grade: 12
5 per/wk – 5 credits
Room: 215
Prerequisites: Three years of art courses, including Studio Art Honors III in the junior year
I. Course Overview
Advanced Placement Studio Art is designed for highly motivated students who are committed to the artistic disciplines. Using guidelines established by the Advanced Placement College Board, students must prepare a portfolio of their best work to be submitted for discussion and evaluation at the end of the school year. Students will work in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional media, including a 15-piece Sustained Investigation that focuses on a theme of personal interest to each student. To be successful in this course many of the art projects must be done outside of class. Outside work for this honors-level course typically requires a commitment of 3 hours or more per week. Students in this course are expected to submit the Advanced Placement Portfolio for college credit and/or advanced placement.
All AP Studio Art students are also encouraged to enroll in an additional art course in the fall semester of their senior year. Students interested in furthering their studies in Architecture, Graphic Design, or Fashion Design beyond high school are strongly encouraged to take as many art courses as possible to create a strong portfolio of work, which is needed for college applications.
Choose Your Direction:
The DRAWING portfolio is designated for work that focuses on the use of mark-making, line, surface, space, light and shade, and composition. Students should consider marks that can be used to make drawings, the arrangement of marks, the materials and processes used to make marks, and relationships of marks and ideas. Students can work with any materials, processes, and ideas. Drawing (analog and digital), painting, printmaking, and mixed media work are among the possibilities for submission.
- AP Drawing Samples 2022 (scroll down on the page)
- AP Drawing Samples Archive
- Anna Perl - digital submission (2022)
- Jack Giles - digital submission (2021)
- Michela Giordano - digital submission (2021)
- Kevin Buxton - AP Art Show (2020)
- Nicole Benjamin - AP Art Show (2020)
- Sarah Schissler - AP Art Show (2020)
- Martello Cesar - AP portfolio exam (2019)
- Marley Gainley - AP exam (2017)
- Anne Zhang - sustained investigation
- Irina Grigoryeva - sustained investigation
- Pablo Aguilar - AP exam
- Jake Ursino - Sustained Investigation
- Toula Papadopoulos - BHS Sustained Investigation
The 2D DESIGN portfolio is designated for work that focuses on the use of two-dimensional (2-D) elements and principles of art and design, including point, line, shape, plane, layer, form, space, texture, color, value, opacity, transparency, time, unity, variety, rhythm, movement, proportion, scale, balance, emphasis, contrast, repetition, figure/ ground relationship, connection, juxtaposition, and hierarchy. Students should consider how materials, processes, and ideas can be used to make work that exists on a flat surface. Students can work with any materials, processes, and ideas. Graphic design, digital imaging, photography, collage, fabric design, weaving, fashion design, fashion illustration, painting, and printmaking are among the possibilities for submission.
- AP 2D Design Samples 2022 (scroll down on the page)
- AP 2D Design Samples Archive
The 3D DESIGN portfolio is designated for work that focuses on the use of three-dimensional (3-D) elements and principles of art and design, including point, line, shape, plane, layer, form, volume, mass, occupied/unoccupied space, texture, color, value, opacity, transparency, time, unity, variety, rhythm, movement, proportion, scale, balance, emphasis, contrast, repetition, connection, juxtaposition, and hierarchy. Students should consider how materials, processes, and ideas can be used to make work that involves space and form. Students can work with any materials, processes, and ideas. Figurative or non-figurative sculpture, architectural models, metal work, ceramics, glasswork, installation, performance, assemblage, and 3-D fabric/fiber arts are among the possibilities for submission.
- AP 3D Design Samples 2022 (scroll down on the page)
- AP 3D Design Samples Archive
- Kevin Mudoola - digital submission (2021)
- A Pinterest collection
- Example AP 3D Design portfolio with fashion emphasis - score 5
- Youtube introduction from an AP 3D class
The Exam
Students in this course are expected to submit the Advanced Placement Portfolio for college credit and/or advanced placement. The AP Studio Art program provides high school students with the opportunity to create portfolios of college-level work, which are submitted for evaluation at the end of the school year. The College Board reviews the portfolios from nationwide submissions. A panel of artists, college professors and high school art teachers evaluate the submitted work and rate it on a scale of 1 to 5 (The individual sections are scored from 1 to 6, but the overall score is recalibrated 1 to 5.). Qualifying portfolio scores enable students to earn college credit and/or advanced placement. Most colleges award academic credit equivalent to one freshman level studio art class for a portfolio that scores a 3 or higher.
Burlington High School’s AP Studio Art course focuses on skills needed for the AP Drawing, AP 2-D Art and Design portfolio, or AP 3-D Art and Design exams. The portfolio for any of these exams contains two required sections: Selected Works and Sustained Investigation. Each portfolio requires students to upload digital images and commentary, as well as actual artworks.
At the beginning of the school year, students enrolled in BHS’ AP Studio Art course will decide which exam (Drawing, 2-D Art and Design, or 3-D Art and Design) they will prepare for, and this will in turn guide their efforts for the year. The difference between the three portfolio exams is described below.:
The Drawing portfolio is intended to address a wide range of approaches and media. Line quality, light and shade, rendering of form, composition, surface manipulation, the illusion of depth, and mark-making are drawing issues that can be addressed through a variety of means, which could include painting, printmaking, mixed media, etc. Abstract, observational and inventive works may be submitted.
Design involves purposeful decision-making about using the elements and principles of art in an integrative way. In the 2-D Art and Design portfolio, you should demonstrate your understanding of design principles as applied to a two-dimensional surface. The principles of design (unity/variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, rhythm, proportion/scale and figure/ground relationship) can be articulated through the visual elements (line, shape, color, value, texture, space). Any 2-D process or medium may be submitted, including, but not limited to, graphic design, digital imaging, photography, collage, fabric design, weaving, fashion design, illustration, painting, printmaking, etc.
In the 3-D Art and Design portfolio, you should demonstrate your understanding of design principles as applied to sculpture and other three-dimensional artwork. You will focus on artistic concepts including point, line, shape, plane, layer, form, volume, mass, occupied/unoccupied space, texture, color, value, opacity, transparency, time, unity, variety, rhythm, movement, proportion, scale, balance, emphasis, contrast, repetition, connection, juxtaposition, and hierarchy. Students should consider how materials, processes, and ideas can be used to make work that involves space and form. Students can work with any materials, processes, and ideas. Figurative or non-figurative sculpture, architectural models, metal work, ceramics, glasswork, installation, performance, assemblage, and 3-D fabric/fiber arts are among the possibilities for submission.
The Two Sections: Selected Works (Quality) and Sustained Investigation (Concentration):
This course encourages and expects a sustained critical and creative investigation in technical, formal and conceptual issues in drawing, 2-D design, or 3-D design.
Selected Works (5 actual artworks)
For this section, you will be submitting five actual artworks that demonstrate your mastery of drawing, 2-D design, or 3-D design issues. There is no preferred (or unacceptable) style or content. Your mastery of media and technique should be apparent in the concept, composition/design, and execution of your works, whether they are simple or complex.
2D Art and Design Portfolio: Five physical works or high-quality printed reproductions of physical works that each demonstrate synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas using 2-D art and design skills
or
Drawing Portfolio: Five physical works or high-quality printed reproductions of physical works that each demonstrate synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas using drawing skills
or
3D Art and Design Portfolio: Five physical works or high-quality printed reproductions of physical works that each demonstrate synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas using 2-D art and design skills
The College Board defines mastery as the ability to express concept, composition, and execution at a level of quality consistent with advanced art production. As this course is equivalent to a first year college art class, you will be expected to challenge yourself to produce and submit work of high quality.
This section of the AP Art and Design Portfolio Exams offers students the opportunity to make and present works of art and design with minimal constraints. Each work is expected to demonstrate skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. Students should carefully select works that best demonstrate their skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. The submission can be a group of related works, unrelated works, or a combination of related and unrelated works. These works may also be submitted in the Sustained Investigation section, but they don’t have to be. Along with each work, students are required to submit written responses to prompts about the work. Responses are evaluated along with the images that students submit. The most successful responses in terms of assessment are those that are clearly related to the images of work submitted, that directly and completely address the prompts, and that provide further evidence of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas shown in the work. Responses are not evaluated for correct spelling, grammar, or punctuation. There is no preferred (or unacceptable) material, process, idea, style, or content. Students should be the principal artist or designer of the work they submit. If work involved collaboration, the student submitting the work needs to have made all key decisions about materials, processes, and ideas used and needs to have performed the activities that produced the work.
REQUIREMENTS AND PROMPTS
Submit five works that demonstrate:
- 2-D/3-D/drawing skills (depending on type of portfolio submitted)
- Synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas
For each work, state the following in writing:
- Idea(s) visually evident (100 characters maximum, including spaces)
- Materials used (100 characters maximum, including spaces)
- Processes used (100 characters maximum, including spaces)
The most successful portfolio submissions will demonstrate:
- Visual evidence of advanced 2-D, 3-D, or drawing skills
- Visual evidence of synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas
- Visual evidence of the written idea in all five works of art
Sustained Investigation (15 images, plus documentation of process)
This section requires 15 digital images of works of art and process documentation that demonstrate sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision.
For your sustained investigation (or concentration), you are asked to make a commitment to the thoughtful investigation of a specific visual idea. To document your process, you should present a number of conceptually related works that show your growth and discovery (For the 2-D and 3-D Design portfolios, these works should use the principles of design in an informed and/or experimental way.). It is important to define your concentration early in the year so that the work you submit will have the focus and direction required for a concentration. A written commentary describing what your concentration is and how it evolved must accompany the work in this section.
A sustained investigation is a body of work that:
- Grows out of a coherent plan of action or investigation;
- Is unified by an underlying idea that has a visual and/or conceptual coherence;
- Is based on your individual interest in a particular visual idea;
- Is focused on a process of investigation, growth and discovery; and
- Shows the development of a visual language appropriate for your subject.
This section of the AP Art and Design Portfolio Exams offers students the opportunity to make and present works of art and design based on an in-depth investigation of materials, processes, and ideas done over time. Sustained investigation is guided by questions. It involves practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas. The Sustained Investigation section is expected to demonstrate skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. Works from the Sustained Investigation section may also be submitted in the Selected Works section, but they don’t have to be. Along with each work, students are required to submit written responses to prompts about the work. Responses to these prompts are evaluated along with the images that students submit. The most successful responses in terms of assessment are those that are clearly related to the images of work submitted; that directly and completely address the prompts; and that provide evidence of inquiry-based sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision. Responses are not evaluated for correct spelling, grammar, or punctuation.
Before committing to your sustained investigation, you will write a proposal for a sustained investigation that you will present to the instructor and the class. The proposal will be your plan of action, and it will include a clear and concise description of the series of artworks, the media and methods you will be using, a schedule, and your objectives. Your peers, during discussion of your concept(s), may help you refine your concentration, to challenge you to go further, or, indeed, to rethink the concentration entirely.
There will be at least one process critique by your peers of your in-progress concentration.
There is no preferred (or unacceptable) basis of inquiry, type of investigation, or use of material, process, idea, style, or content for the Sustained Investigation. Students should be the principal artist or designer of the work they submit. If work involved collaboration, the student submitting the work needs to have made all key decisions about materials, processes, and ideas used and needs to have performed the activities that produced the work.
REQUIREMENTS AND PROMPTS
Submit 15 images that demonstrate:
- Sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision
- Sustained investigation of materials, processes, and ideas
- Synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas
- 2-D/3-D/drawing skills (depending on type of portfolio submitted)
State the following in writing:
- Identify the questions that guided your sustained investigation
- Describe how your sustained investigation shows evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by your questions (1200 characters maximum, including spaces, for response to both prompts)
Questions that guide the sustained investigation are typically formulated at the beginning of portfolio development. Students should formulate their questions based on their own experiences and ideas. These guiding questions should be documented and further developed by students throughout the sustained investigation.
Identify the following for each image:
- Materials used (100 characters maximum, including spaces)
- Processes used (100 characters maximum, including spaces)
- Size (height × width × depth, in inches)
For images that document process or show detail, students should enter “N/A” for size (see Additional Information About the Sustained Investigation Section on the following page for more details).
For digital and virtual work, students should enter the size of the intended visual display.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE SUSTAINED INVESTIGATION SECTION
Throughout their sustained investigation, students need to document—with images and words—practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas as well as skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. From their documentation of thinking and making, students select images and writing to include in their portfolio that most effectively demonstrate sustained investigation according to AP Art and Design Portfolio Exam assessment criteria. Process documentation images included in the portfolio should show evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas and/ or of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas, providing insight on students’ inquiry, thinking, and making. Detail images should be submitted only when it is important to see a close-up view of a work as evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision or of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. When submitting work for the Sustained Investigation section, students should carefully consider the sequence of their images. There is no required order; images should be presented to best demonstrate sustained investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision using materials, processes, and ideas. Students should also consider the relationship of their images with the written information they submit.
Sketchbook/Journal
You are expected to maintain an 11 x 14” sketchbook/journal throughout the course, in which you will include your visual ideas, notes (on your materials, processes, ideas, practice, experimentation, and revision), photos (for reference, inspiration, etc.), doodles, plans, short assignments, quick sketches, experiments with various techniques, and many of your homework assignments. You are expected to use it regularly. For the fullest benefit, it should be with you at all times.
Critiques and Journals
Critiques of in-class projects and homework are an important and regular part of the course. Usually weekly, mid-process on longer projects and after the completion of every major project, you will have the opportunity to analyze and discuss your own artwork and the work of your peers during oral group critiques. In these teacher-guided critiques, you will be challenged to explain how your work demonstrates your individual vision.
You will also be asked to write about your work, and in both the critiques and in your writing, you will be challenged to explain your ideas and your processes (demonstrating your Inquiry and Investigation); to describe how you have Practiced, Experimented, and Revised as you worked, and to Reflect on the process, on the success of your visual communication, and on the quality of the final work. You will also critique the work of your peers, querying, commenting, and challenging each other to do stronger and stronger work. In addition to the critiques and your writing, the instructor will discuss your work with you and provide feedback at least every few days. Upon request, you may receive further individualized instruction and assessment during the instructor’s prep periods and after school.
Course Timeline - Assignment Due Dates 2023-2024
AP Studio Art Summer Work 2023
http://bhsportfolio.weebly.com/current-assignments/ap-studio-art-summer-work-2020
DUE the first Friday of the new school year.
Summer Assignments weigh 30% of the Quarter 1 grade.
Art materials are to be returned to school at the beginning of the school year.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Summer work is an essential part of the AP Studio Art course. Summer assignments help alleviate the pressure during the school year of producing the many quality pieces needed for a successful portfolio. During the summer prior to the AP school year, you are expected to complete twenty sketches and six art assignments (listed below) in the media of your choice, which will all be due on the first day of the school year. Completing more of these pieces than required will only put you that much further ahead when school starts. Consider each piece’s potential for inclusion in your portfolio for the AP exam, and invest the time and effort necessary to produce high quality work. In addition to the sketches and six assignments, you must visit an art museum (online if they are still closed) and document the experience in your sketchbook.
- 20+ sketches/drawings in sketchbook (ongoing throughout summer)
- 1 art museum visit with essays and sketches
- 1 write-up (typed) of at least 10 possibilities for your Sustained Investigation
- 5 high-quality artworks (See list of choices)
SKETCHBOOK (20+ Sketches)
Your sketchbook should be one of your “best friends” this summer. Carry it with you as much as you can, everywhere! Open it up first thing in the morning and last thing at night and many times in between. Draw in it, write in it, scribble in it, paint in it, glue things into it, cut the pages, tear the pages, change the way it looks to make it look like your own book. At the end of the summer it should reflect YOU and your experiences throughout the summer. Work in your sketchbook is an ongoing process that will help you make informed and critical decisions about the progress of your work. Your sketchbook is the perfect place to try a variety of concepts and techniques as you develop your own voice and style.
In addition to using your sketches to plan your projects, you must complete 20 sketches and spend approximately 30 minutes on each. Sketchbooks should display forethought, good composition, good craftsmanship, and have mature subject matter (avoid trite, overused symbols). These sketchbook assignments should be finished drawings (Sometimes pieces for the Breadth section of the AP Exam come from sketchbooks.). Some of your drawings will focus on line quality, while others will focus on a full range of tonal value and good contrast, and still others will concentrate on subtle color shifts.
If there are drawings in your sketchbook that are outstanding, they may be used in your AP Portfolio Exam.
Guidelines for working in your sketchbook:
- Imperfect drawings are OK; don’t be afraid to make mistakes; make false starts.
- As much as you can, fill the page you are working on. Go off the edges whenever possible. Draw large. Do not make little drawings floating in the center of the page. Make every square inch count for something.
- Return to unfinished drawings. Go back later, change them, and make them into something else. Being able to rescue bad beginnings is the sign of a truly creative mind.
- Fill many, many, many pages of your sketchbook before school begins.
- Put the date on the corner of every page you finish.
- Draw from observation, things you see in the world, NOT from photographs, magazines, etc. Learn to translate the dynamic three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional world. If you are going to use a photograph, tape/paperclip a copy of it to the page.
- Avoid cute, adorable images. This is a college-level art class, so expect your ideas about what makes good art to be challenged by others.
- Your sketchbook is a place for risk-taking. Don’t be boring with your work.
Here are some ideas for what to draw in your sketchbook. Choose from this list or create your own ideas for your 20 or more sketches.
- your pet
- squirrels, birds, outdoor animals (from life)
- animals at the zoo, in a natural history museum, in the Science Museum
- pile of pillows
- effect(s) of extreme light source
- shoes
- fabric with pattern
- baseball glove
- sink with dishes in it
- tools (see the work of artist Jim Dine)
- extreme perspective; unusual viewpoint
- yourself in fifteen years
- insects
- proverb
- opposites
- draw on top of an old drawing
- social statement
- conflict of interest
- man-made vs. natural
- park
- anatomy
- close-up of an object making it abstract
- political cartoons
- transformation / morphs
- realistic cloud formations, in full value and texture, or in full color (what colors do you see in the clouds and sky?)
- fill a plastic bag with objects and draw from observation
- a figure drawn from an unusual perspective
- what was for dinner
- forest floor
- look up words you do not know and illustrate them
- an interior (for example, your room, your kitchen)
- how it works -- inner workings of a machine -- mechanics of an object
- negative space only
- glass bottles
- nightmares / other worlds
- outside v. inside
- metallic and/or reflective objects
- ballpoint pen only
- line drawings of organic objects
- a parked car, from a ¾ angle
- exaggeration
- the skeleton of a small animal or bird
- accidents -- random acts of art
- home is where the heart is
- grouping of seashells
- portraits of your friends as famous characters from books
- contour drawings of insects
- multiple drawings of the same object, one per night for a week, using different media
- buildings and man-made structures with character -- bridges, interiors of old churches, old theaters, etc.
- landscapes with and without buildings
- botanical drawings
- a single flower with all its petals, leaves, etc., drawn accurately
- a close-up set of 3 - 5 pieces of popped popcorn
- looking from an interior pace to an exterior space (i.e. through a doorway or window)
- a single object drawing from several viewpoints
- fabric with a pattern. hanging or suspended
- a chess set, partially played, or a different childhood game
- your favorite food, or the table setting for a meal
- an opened candy bar or packaged food, with the wrapper
MUSEUM VISIT
Refer to the list of museums on the Resources page of the Art Department’s website (www.burlingtonhighschoolart.org). Visit one of them. Take your sketchbook.
Visit one of these museums (There are also other museum options on the Collections page of Google Arts & Culture):
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA Boston)
Harvard Art Museums
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
The Museum of Modern Art
The Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Complete these three activities:
a. In your sketchbook, describe the experience of the museum visit. What are the first things that you notice when you walk in the front doors? What do you notice about the space, the environment? Describe what you see and feel and why that has caught your attention. Be as specific as possible.
b. In your sketchbook, write a full page (in essay form, not notes) about two different artists’ paintings of the same subject matter. Compare and contrast approaches. Use the 4-step critique process when evaluating the works: Describe the work in detail, then Analyze it (i.e. what do you notice about composition, color theory, the use of the principles of design, technique, etc.), Interpret (What does it mean? Why did the artist make the choices he/she did?), and Judge/Evaluate (What works about it? What doesn't?) Write one paragraph for each of those four steps.
c. Draw full-value thumbnail sketches of both artworks. Your thumbnail drawings should indicate dark, middle and light tones to truly capture the basic composition of each, but will not focus on detail. These should be good (but small) compositional drawings.
SUSTAINED INVESTIGATION IDEAS
You are asked to make a commitment to the thoughtful investigation of a specific visual idea.
A sustained investigation is a body of work that:
- Grows out of a coherent plan of action or investigation;
- Is unified by an underlying idea that has a visual and/or conceptual coherence;
- Is based on your individual interest in a particular visual idea;
- Is focused on a process of investigation, growth and discovery; and
- Shows the development of a visual language appropriate for your subject.
Generate a list of at least ten different GREAT possibilities for your senior-year Sustained Investigation series. Describe each idea in a few sentences (NOT just a few words -- be thoughtful about it.), being clear on what your main objective(s) will be. Each of these ten ideas should really be something you’d love to do for two months or more. Each idea would be for a series of at least fifteen pieces. Do not try to complete the list in one sitting. Think about it over time and develop the ideas, don’t just list them. Turn this in as a TYPED document.
Before beginning:
Look at the work of contemporary artists to get a sense of the wide variety of concepts and approaches being used today. You can find many contemporary artists by going to the PBS website for its Art21 program at http://www.pbs.org/art21/ .
Also, view sample Sustained Investigation portfolios of previous AP students at the following links:
Drawing
Anna Perl - digital submission (2022)
Jack Giles - digital submission (2021)
Michela Giordano - digital submission (2021)
Anne Zhang - sustained investigation
Irina Grigoryeva - sustained investigation (2014)
Pablo Aguilar - AP exam (2013)
Jake Ursino - AP Sustained Investigation (2013)
Kevin Buxton - AP Art Show (2020)
Nicole Benjamin - AP Art Show (2020)
Sarah Schissler - AP Art Show (2020)
Martello Cesar - AP portfolio exam (2019)
Marley Gainley - AP exam (2017)
2D Design
Reece McLean - digital submission (2022)
Danielle Spinosa - AP exam (2013)
3D Design
Kevin Mudoola - digital submission (2021)
Sample portfolios are at the BOTTOM of these pages:
Drawing
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-drawing/portfolio?course=ap-drawing
(Scroll down to Drawing Sustained Investigation Samples and Commentary and Additional Sample Portfolios.)
2D Design
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-2-d-art-and-design/portfolio?course=ap-2-d-art-and-design
(Scroll down to 2D Design Sustained Investigation Samples and Commentary and Additional Sample Portfolios.)
3D Design
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-3-d-art-and-design/portfolio?course=ap-3-d-art-and-design
(Scroll down to 3D Design Sustained Investigation Samples and Commentary and Additional Sample Portfolios.)
Here is what your concentration list might look like: Concentration Ideas Samples.
ART PROJECTS
Complete at least 5 of these. You may contact Mr. Ratkevich in advance to discuss possibilities if you would like to do something that is not listed here. The assignments below are mostly Drawing or 2D Art & Design options. If you wish to do 3D Art & Design, we will work out alternatives. All of these are to be NEW works, created from June - August 2021. Each should take several hours to complete to AP Portfolio Quality.:
1. “Café” Drawings – (This is in addition to the sketches/sketchbook assignment listed above.)
Take your sketchbook to a good location for observing people: the mall, a café, the beach, etc.
Try to capture your family members “at rest”, in natural states, not posing for you. What do people look like in their most relaxed or natural states?
Fill up several pages (at least four) with multiple drawings of people on each page. You should have AT LEAST ten good figure sketches. Try to capture people in their natural habitats and in activities that are relatively stable: reading, eating, waiting in line, etc. (Do not have people knowingly pose for you.). Capture the entire figures as much as possible. Indicate their environments as much as possible.
Some artists to view/study before doing this assignment (Look them up, specifically looking for “figure sketches”:
Honore Daumier
Edgar Degas
examples of cafe sketches
“Cafe” sketches by Martello Cesar, BHS Class of 2019:
Pages 1 & 2
Pages 3 & 4
2. Multi-Figure Narrative – Make an artwork that tells some type of a “story”, perhaps a moment from a personal memoir; or a scene from a story you’ve previously written; or an episode from history. It should have several human figures interacting with each other and with their surroundings. It may be a drawing, a painting, or a mixed media artwork if you have the materials. It can even be three-dimensional. Focus on pictorial composition, considering the principles of art and art concepts such as the implied triangle. You may make it up entirely, or have people pose for you (recommended), or you may use photographic references (especially if you take the photos yourself.), but it should not be a copy of a single photograph or copy another artwork in any way. The figures may be stylized rather than realistic if you choose.
Some artists to look at before doing the Multi-Figure Narrative (Look them up in Google Arts & Culture: Explore. These are in chronological order.).:
Caravaggio
Francisco Goya (particularly The Caprices and The Third of May, 1808)
Auguste Renoir (particularly The Boating Party Lunch)
Edgar Degas: The Dance Lesson
Mary Cassatt (particularly The Boating Party)
Max Beckmann
Marc Chagall
Norman Rockwell
Jacob Lawrence
Romare Bearden
Jack Levine
Chris Van Allsburg (children’s book illustrator: Jumanji and The Polar Express)
Jake Ursino, BHS Class of 2013: At the Music Festival
Jake Ursino’s AP Sustained Investigation
Irina Grigoryeva, BHS Class of 2014: Save Our Oceans
Multi-figure narrative by Martello Cesar, BHS Class of 2019: My Future
Multi-figure narrative by Martello Cesar, BHS Class of 2019: Chess
3. Abstract Painting – Create a painting that utilizes the principles of art to maximize visual impact. Consider color theory (In fact, study the color relationships in the paintings of the artists below, and use their color palettes or some thoughtful variation.). This is an abstract or non-objective artwork. If you are not satisfied with your first attempt, keep trying until you’ve created something you want to hang on your wall. Work until you impress yourself.
Some artists to view/study before doing this assignment:
Wassily Kandinsky
Kazimir Malevich
Paul Klee
Franz Marc
Pablo Picasso
Joan Miro
Jackson Pollock
Jasper Johns
Frank Stella
Sonia Delauney
Miriam Schapiro
4. Landscape – This is observational (from life, not a photo). Make a painting of an interesting place other than your home; a vacation spot would be a good choice. The illusion of three-dimensional space should be a major concern. Consider atmospheric (aerial) perspective and, if relevant, linear perspective. If you choose a location far from home, watercolor may be a good medium to use because of its portability, but the medium is up to you. Suggestion: Do a series of thumbnail sketches to work out the composition. Work from life, not from photographs. Make every effort to work plein air – meaning drawing or painting outdoors. You will have better light and will be able to focus on the color you actually see.
Some artists to view/study before doing this assignment (Look them up, specifically looking for “landscape painting”):
J.M.W. Turner
Claude Monet
Vincent Van Gogh
Paul Gauguin
5. Still Life – Using the color medium of your choice, paint a still life comprised of at least three visually interesting objects. Work large (at least 18 x 24”). Build a strong composition. Observational accuracy is key; notice the relationships between shapes, both positive and negative. Notice subtle color changes. Mix colors with specificity and accuracy. Establish form via chiaroscuro and color changes. Demonstrate your ability to create a rich range of tonal value.
Helpful Resources: Before doing the assignment, look at / study as many still lifes by master paintings as you can, and apply what you know about placement, composition, lighting, form, texture, etc. If there are complex surfaces, inscribed of printed patterns, textures, etc., all the better.
Some artists to view/study before doing this assignment (Look them up, specifically looking for “still life”):
Paul Cezanne
William Harnett
Vincent Van Gogh
Wayne Thiebaud
Ralph Goings
Rebecca Scott
Janet Fish
Dik F. Liu
Here are a few painters to look at to inform your still life work. If working in color, pay attention to the nuances/shifts in color even within the same surfaces/planes. Also remember that every change in direction (every plane) will have a shift in value and in color temperature. Typically, shadows will be cooler in color (bluer) and where the light hits will be warmer (more yellow, orange, or red), but not always.
Dik Liu
https://www.dikliu.com/food
https://www.dikliu.com/trolls
Catherine Kehoe (teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design)
https://catherinekehoe.com/still-life/1
The packaged still lifes of Janet Fish will give you some ideas of how to paint transparent plastic.
Look at some of the work of Wayne Thiebaud, especially the slot machines, cash register, paint buckets, and gumball machine paintings he has done.
Still life paintings of Paul Cezanne, who painted in the 19th century. Pay particular attention to how he addresses the wall and cloth around the still life; how color and value change.
For a more emotionally expressive way of painting, and more playful brushwork, look at the still life paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. Color is amped up in these.
Also, explore the work of Luis Melendez, a fantastic still life painter from 18th Century Spain. The link will bring you to the collection of his work at the Prado museum in Spain, but you can also see more of his work if you look him up in sites for our National Gallery in DC, at Boston's MFA, and probably in the Google Arts & Culture site that I've been plugging for the past several weeks.
6. After developing your ten ideas for a potential Sustained Investigation (See assignment above.), complete one or two Sustained Investigation “Try-Outs” to AP Portfolio quality.
7. Dissection -- A drawing study of an object that you have taken apart. Arrange the parts on a surface with other objects related or not related and study the TEXTURAL qualities. Arrange them to make a strong composition: design the page. Some ideas would be a mechanical object, a child’s toy, a makeup bag, your bin of art supplies, ingredients for a cooking recipe, a few apples or other fruit cut apart…anything where you are creating a still composition out of something that has been dissected or disassembled.
8. A self portrait expressing a mood. How can you use value, color, style, and design to express mood? What style will work best for you in this work? This can be observational, but it doesn’t have to be. You might create a composition with multiple self-portraits with different expressions and/or from different angles. Do some research online (Google Arts and Culture, for example) to see how different artists create what might be considered self portraits and what techniques and media they use. Use an odd/extreme angle and consider strong light/dark contrast. The idea is to create a deeply personal artwork that reflects feeling.
Some artists to look at:
- Frida Kahlo
- Robert Arneson
- Pablo Picasso
- Vincent Van Gogh
9. Still life arrangement of three or more reflective objects. Your goal is to convey convincing representation. Sketch and shade for contrast and drama. Consider doing this as a self portrait – draw yourself distorted in a shiny object.
10. A drawing of an unusual interior – for example, look inside a closet or cabinet, in the refrigerator, under the car’s hood or inside the medicine cabinet.
11. A still life arrangement of objects representing members of your family. You must have at least three objects and use an unusual viewpoint or angle. Put the objects on the floor and stand up looking down at them, or on a table surface and look down and across at them (Include a photographic snapshot of your set-up when you turn in your final piece.).
12. A close up of a bicycle/tricycle from an unusual angle with strong light/shadow. Don’t draw the bicycle from the side view.
13. Shoes -- Create a still life arrangement consisting of your family members’ shoes: more than a single pair; at least two or three pairs. Arrange them to overlap each other and to fill the picture plane. Try to convey the different personalities of your family members through the rendering of the shoes. Be creative and have fun! This assignment can be done in monochrome (black, white, gray) and/or in color using any medium, technique and style you desire.
14. Create an artwork regarding a political or social issue you feel strongly about. There are many different ways to protest, to reach an audience, to make a difference. Before you begin the art, write a statement out in detail to develop your ideas. Spend some time on this; get to the heart of how you feel and what you believe. Draw thumbnail sketches to compose your image before beginning the final artwork. Use content, color, design, and style to maximize the emotional expressiveness of your piece. CLARITY in your visual statement is essential.
Before beginning, view this Mural slideshow originally made for the Tenacity Challenge. It includes masterworks, student examples, and tips to get started.
15. Using the media of your choice, design a CD cover for an imaginary musician or group, or for a local band that you might even know personally. It must be totally original (No copies of someone else’s photographs). It should include the band’s name and an album title in addition to the artwork.
16. Create a fully-realized artwork that illustrates a scene from a book (a novel or children’s story). Research contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley’s work, Rembrandt’s many biblical scenes, and the work of children’s book illustrators Maurice Sendak and Jan Brett.
17. You may try your hand at one of these Concentration Ideas Samples.
18. Take on one of the more unusual challenges from the TV show Project Runway.
19. Create an article of clothing/fashion that is also a sculpture.
20. Steam Punk
21. Bring your Spring “Pathways” project to a level of detailed refinement.
II. Successful Learning
- LOOK carefully at things. Understand the importance of observation and reflection.
- Appreciate and respect the process of art-making.
- Ask questions.
- Challenge yourself. – If there seems to be a simple solution, push yourself to find a more creative one.
- Experiment. Take risks with your art.
- Be open to suggestions.
- Be aware of how other artists solve similar problems.
- Make productive use of your time.
- Be willing to rework an assignment.
- Complete approximately one major artwork each week.
- Remember that you are working on unique, original solutions to visual problems.
- Complete the homework assignments as if they were major class projects (3 – 5 hours/week).
- Take advantage of your sketchbook and draw independently and often.
- Visit museums and galleries.
- Look at art in books and magazines.
III. 21st Century Learning Expectations
Consistent with the school’s mission and 21st Century Learning Skills, Art & Design students are engaged in modes of artistic and creative expression and critical thinking every day. They are presented with extensive opportunities for growth in creating, presenting, responding, and connecting. Students are encouraged to develop skills that teach them accountability, adaptability and tenacity in their academic, social, and civic interactions. Students will work both independently and collaboratively to solve artistic and conceptual problems, acquiring skills to generate their own questions and investigate independent topics of interest related to the concepts being taught. They will synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art, and they will convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work. Students will apply a variety of problem-solving strategies, which may involve generating and conceptualizing artistic ideas through writing or brainstorming; organizing and developing these ideas through drafting, revising, and refining for presentation; working spontaneously and experimentally; and processing feedback from peers.
Students will participate in a classroom environment where they are nurtured to act with integrity in all academic endeavors and to exhibit respect for themselves and empathy for others. They will learn to speak honestly and respectfully to classmates and respect their opinions in discussions and in group critiques of student work. They will interpret meaning and intent in artistic work, and they will use the vocabulary of art in a way that demonstrates informed, critical decision-making, applying criteria to evaluate artistic work. They will exhibit responsible citizenship by maintaining their tools and work space; assisting and serving as resources for classmates; and considering the relevance of art in a local, global and digital society. Students will relate their artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding, studying the work of famous artists and artwork from different cultures and eras.
As a student in this course, you will be expected to:
- Apply a variety of problem-solving strategies.
- Art requires much thought. You will be learning many ways to approach art-making. Some will involve writing your ideas; some will involve rough drafts; some will involve working spontaneously and experimentally; some will involve receiving and evaluating feedback from peers.
- Art requires much thought. You will be learning many ways to approach art-making. Some will involve writing your ideas; some will involve rough drafts; some will involve working spontaneously and experimentally; some will involve receiving and evaluating feedback from peers.
- Write effectively
- in your journal and in written critiques of artwork.
- in your journal and in written critiques of artwork.
- Communicate orally
- by sharing your ideas with the class and discussing the work of others. You will be expected to use the vocabulary of art (including reference to the elements and principles of art) in a way that demonstrated informed, critical decision-making.
- by sharing your ideas with the class and discussing the work of others. You will be expected to use the vocabulary of art (including reference to the elements and principles of art) in a way that demonstrated informed, critical decision-making.
- Read critically
- from magazine articles on famous artists, and when working on an art history research project.
- from magazine articles on famous artists, and when working on an art history research project.
- Demonstrate self-control and respect for all individuals.
- Speak honestly and respectfully to your classmates and respect their voice and their opinions in discussions and group critiques.
- Speak honestly and respectfully to your classmates and respect their voice and their opinions in discussions and group critiques.
- Pursue and participate in modes of artistic and creative expression EVERY DAY.
- Exhibit responsible citizenship.
- Be responsible for your tools and your workspace; assist your classmates when needed; consider how you can reach out to the rest of the school and your community with your art.
- Be responsible for your tools and your workspace; assist your classmates when needed; consider how you can reach out to the rest of the school and your community with your art.
These expectations align with the school’s mission statement.
IV. Expected Outcomes
By the completion of this course, the successful student will be able to:
- Independently generate and realize project ideas.
- Meet personal artistic goals.
- Develop effective compositions.
- Be skillful with a range of art materials and techniques.
- Demonstrate an exploratory attitude and approach to using those media and processes.
- Properly maintain art tools and materials.
- Take proper safety precautions.
- Recognize, analyze and discuss the works of important artists, periods and styles.
- Solve problems using critical and creative thinking.
- Exercise self-discipline, self-reliance and self-motivation.
- Communicate ideas and feelings through art.
- Communicate orally and in writing about your own artwork and the work of others.
- Help to foster a sense of community and collaboration.
- Demonstrate an appreciation of the roles art can play in your life and in the world.
- Take advantage of the opportunities to participate in presentations by artists, art school representatives, Portfolio Days, and field trips.
- Use a digital 35mm camera and a scanner to document work in digital “slide” form
- Create a portfolio of at least fifteen to twenty works for college applications by mid-year.
- Create a portfolio of at least thirty strong works for either the Drawing, 2D Design, or 3D Design AP exam.
- Take the Drawing, 2D Design, or 3D Design AP exam.
- Create an exhibit of your best work
- Participate in a year-end group exhibition and reception.
V. Topics/ Content
Throughout the course, you will be involved in:
- Inquiry and Investigation
- Practice, Experimentation, and Revision
- Communication and Reflection
- Documentation
Main Topics of Discussion and Skill-Building:
- Making Meaning -- Personal expression and visual communication
- Studio Habits of Mind
- Design-thinking
- The Importance of Process - from concept to visual
- Conceptual Drawing
- Visual problem-solving, planning, and process
- The Importance of Process - from concept to visual
- Creative thinking
- Composition / Design / Aesthetics – the elements of art and how the principles of art are used to organize them
- Skill / Craftsmanship with various methods and materials, including (for 2D) those used for drawing, painting, printmaking, design, collage, mixed media, as well as others; and (for 3D) ceramics, sculpture, and fashion.
- Observational skills
- Important art and artists from history and the contemporary art world, and connections to the applied arts – Their importance historically and placed in context to your work
- Reflection, analysis, and critique
- Self-Promotion -- Digital portfolio, portfolio presentation, and exhibiting your work
Essential Questions:
- What informs why, how, and what artists and designers make?
- How do artists and designers make works of art and design?
- Why and how do artists and designers present their work to viewers?
Schedule:
Starting Out
Course Expectations
AP Requirements and the AP Exam
Quality - What’s it look like?
Presentation and critique of summer work – ALL summer work is due the first week of the school year.
The importance of:
- Inquiry and Investigation
- Practice, Experimentation, and Revision
- Communication and Reflection
- Documentation
The importance of keeping a sketchbook
Good Art: Aesthetics, Art History, Applied Arts, and the Relevance of Art Today
The Future:
Careers in the Visual Arts;
Presentations by Art School Representatives
Fall and Early Winter
BREADTH AND QUALITY (for SELECTED WORKS)
Throughout the fall and early winter, you will continue to build your skills in several of the following areas, previously studied in the Studio Art Honors III course. You will build on your knowledge and understanding of the content from that course as you develop more advanced, complex, personal and more independent work.
During the fall, you will also be challenged in outside assignments to generate and develop possibilities to try out for your later Sustained Investigation.
In both the Selected Works and the Sustained Investigation “Try-Outs”, you will Inquire and Investigate; Practice, Experiment, and Revise; Communicate through and about your art work, and Reflect on your processes and success.
The Place: Interior and Exterior Spaces
How does an artist use places/spaces as reference sources for more personal and masterly art?
The Thing: Objects as Starting Points (including things from the natural world)
How does an artist use objects as reference/starting points for more personal and masterly art?
The Face: Portraiture and Facial Expression
How do I use the human head as a reference/starting point for more personal and masterly art?
- Structure of the Human Head
- Anatomy
- Likeness
- Three-dimensionality (“form”) through the use of tonal value and color changes
- Capturing character/personality
- Expressiveness
The Body: Figurative Art
How do I use the human figure as a reference/starting point for more personal and masterly art?
- Structure of the Human Figure
- Anatomy
- Gesture
- Three-dimensionality (“form”) through the use of tonal value
- Figure/ground relationships – integration of figures and environment
- Expressiveness
The Design: Pictorial Composition and Color Theory; Abstraction
The Media: Exploration of Art Materials and Techniques
Throughout the fall and winter, to help you develop enough a rich and varied body of work to choose from for the Selected Works section of the exam, you will maintain an exploratory attitude in using many of the following materials and techniques:
Media (Materials and Techniques) in the Drawing track may include:
- Pencil
- Charcoal
- Chalk
- Oil pastel
- Pastel
- Watercolor
- Acrylic Paint
- Pen and Ink
- Ink Washes (Brush and Ink)
- Scratchboard
- Collage
- Printmaking
- Mixed Media
In addition to the above, media in the 2-D Art and Design track may include:
- Digital Imaging (Photoshop)
- Graphic Design (using Photoshop, Illustrator, and/or InDesign)
- Photography (Digital and Analog)
- Fabric Design
- Weaving
- Fashion Design
Media in the 3D Art and Design track may include:
- Ceramics
- Plaster
- Construction
- Assemblage
- Carving
- Mixed media
- Other sculpture techniques
- Fashion design
The different methods and materials will be used at various points throughout the year. For example, during the unit on interiors and exteriors, students may begin by drawing a landscape from observation in pencil in their sketchbooks. They may later use charcoal for a larger drawing of an interior, then do a series of small landscape paintings in watercolor, a difficult medium that requires much practice to control well. Students may return to any of those materials in approaching the problems posed in the unit on stylization and abstraction, or they may use other methods. For the unit entitled “The Media”, we will work with one or two more involved processes. That may be reductive printmaking, or mixed media involving drawing, acrylic paint and collage, or scratchboard illustration, or something else. For your Sustained Investigation, you may choose to focus on the mastery of one medium or technique, or you may approach your topic with a variety of methods.
November – January
DOCUMENTATION AND DISPLAY
Making a Slide Portfolio, Applying to Art Programs, Preparing for Exhibitions
January/February - April:
SUSTAINED INVESTIGATION
The Sustained Investigation section shows the student's in-depth exploration of a particular design concern. It is presented as 15 images, some of which may be details of work or documentation of process. Students will submit images and writing to document their inquiry-guided investigation through practice, experimentation, and revision. The emphasis is on a coherent development of an idea through a body of work, in addition to the artistic success of the work.
Late April:
The Exhibition: Organizing an Art Show
How does an artist best present his/her actual work in an art exhibition?
The Presentation
How do I make an effective presentation of my portfolio to an audience?
The Exam
Organizing, Documenting and Submitting your Portfolio to the College Board
May (Post-Exam):
Collaboration / Public Art: Mural Painting or Some Other Collaborative Work (A Group Effort)
What are the steps and considerations in making a large-scale public work?
We plan to schedule at least one field trip to an art museum during the year.
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Ongoing:
Throughout the entire year, you will be involved in:
- Inquiry and Investigation
- Practice, Experimentation, and Revision
- Communication and Reflection
- Documentation
We describe what these look like in these next sections.:
Inquiry and Investigation
AP Studio Art provides opportunities for you to practice and develop the skills of Skill 1: Inquiry and Investigation through portfolio development, as outlined in the AP Course and Exam Description.
In the AP summer work, students have the opportunity to research how the materials, processes, and ideas they’re interested in have been used by other artists, designers, and makers. They do this through visits to museums, through online research, and by pouring through books and magazines. By comparing the works of two masters in a museum, for example, they describe, interpret, and investigate materials, processes, and ideas.
Students create a “scrapbook” section in their sketchbooks in which they collect and paste images they find inspiring and possibly influential for their own future independent art projects, which may or may not be related to a series. They write notes on these works and label them. They choose one or two of these images to discuss with the class. In their notes and in sharing verbally, they identify why they are personally drawn to the work.
Beginning in the summer prior to the AP Studio Art course, students view and discuss the Sustained Investigation portfolios of their predecessors in the course. During the summer, they are challenged to develop a list of ten different possibilities for their own Sustained Investigation series, to describe each idea in a few sentences, being clear on their main objectives for each idea. Before drafting the list, students are encouraged to look at the work of contemporary artists to get a sense of the wide variety of concepts and approaches being used today by their own research and by visiting websites such as the Art21 program at http://www.pbs.org/art21/ . Students have the opportunity to choose as one of their summer assignments a “try-out” of one of their ideas, and also to attempt one or more of the Sustained Investigation prompts of previous AP students. We discuss these ideas when we return to the classroom in September, and discuss any efforts made to realize a work from one of the ideas. We talk about difficulties and successes in pairing certain media and processes with certain ideas.
As outside assignments for several weeks throughout the fall, students do additional Sustained Investigation “try-outs” based on their list, and in critique discuss the process, results, and potential for a true Sustained Investigation.
Before committing to their Sustained Investigation in the late winter, students write a one-page proposal for the series and present it to the class. The class discusses the strengths and potential pitfalls of the ideas.
Throughout the late winter and spring, students create one or two fully-realized pieces each week for their Sustained Investigation, or revisions/reworking/replacements of older pieces, refining submissions considered weaker (based on feedback and reflection) and filling in gaps.
Typically once a week, students gather as a group for dialog about their work, often outside work and sometimes work in progress. Each student presents and discusses their current work to date with the entire class. They discuss materials, processes, and ideas they’re using to make work and receive constructive feedback from peers and their teacher. Feedback is provided through discussion and/or note-taking on comments related to specific portfolio requirements (such as evidence of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas; practice, experimentation, and revision; inquiry). Students are encouraged to write or otherwise record the feedback about their work to inform ongoing thinking and making.
Practice, Experimentation, and Revision
AP Studio Art provides opportunities for you to practice and develop your skills in Skill 2: Making through Practice, Experimentation, and Revision through portfolio development, as outlined in the AP Course and Exam Description.
Throughout the fall and early winter, students build upon knowledge, skills and understandings in areas they had previously studied in the Studio Art Honors III course as they develop more advanced, complex, personal, and independent work. As we spend a great deal of time in each area, it affords us the opportunity to take a “deep dive” into the subject and to approach the subject using different materials and techniques.
For example, in figurative art-making, by studying the structure of the human figure, anatomy, gesture, three-dimensionality (“form”) through the use of tonal value, figure/ground relationships, and expressiveness, students consider from a number of perspectives how to use the human figure as a reference or starting point for more personal art. With the practice of repeatedly drawing the figure in life using models in different poses and for different lengths of time, concentrating on different aspects of figure drawing, and using a number of different materials, student work becomes more skillful and confident.
In many cases, after a visual problem or design challenge is defined by either the instructor or the student, to solve the problem the student will work through a process of brainstorming and developing ideas, thumbnail sketches, compositional variations and color studies, full-sized rough drafts, and experimentation with materials. At various points in the process, the work will be presented to others for feedback, after which further development and revision will occur. Students are always encouraged to return to previous artworks with newly gained skill, knowledge, and understanding, and with consideration of feedback from peers and instructor, to revise and improve their work.
You will document your thinking and making both in writing and visually, photographing drafts and stages of progress. By reviewing your sketchbooks with peers and the instructor, we will appreciate how practice, experimentation, and revision have guided you in your work, and how over time you have investigated and explored materials, processes, and ideas.
Communication and Reflection
AP Studio Art provides opportunities for you to practice and develop your skills in Skill 3: Communication and Reflection through portfolio development, as outlined in the AP Course and Exam Description.
Critiques of in-class projects and homework are an important and regular part of the course. Usually weekly, mid-process on longer projects and after the completion of every major project, you will have the opportunity to analyze and discuss your own artwork and the work of your peers during oral group critiques. In these teacher-guided critiques, you will be challenged to explain how your work demonstrates your individual vision, you will discuss how your work and the work of your peers demonstrate synthesis of materials, process, and ideas, and you will share your views on the skillfulness and quality of the work.
You will also be asked to write about your work, in your journals or digitally using Google Docs, and in both the critiques and in your writing you will be challenged to describe your use of the materials and explain your processes and ideas (demonstrating your Inquiry and Investigation); to describe how you have Practiced, Experimented, and Revised as you were guided by questions, and to Reflect on the process, on the success of your visual communication, and on the quality of the final work. You will also critique the work of your peers, querying, commenting, and challenging each other to create stronger and stronger work. In addition to the critiques and your writing, the instructor will discuss your work with you and provide feedback at least every few days. Upon request, you may receive further individualized instruction and assessment during the instructor’s prep periods and after school.
After brainstorming and developing possibilities for your Sustained Investigation and “trying out” some of those potential series through the creation of individual pieces, you will write a proposal/intention for your Sustained Investigation that answers the following:
- Identify the inquiry or question(s) that will guide your sustained investigation.
- How do you plan to explore that question/idea?
Upon completion of your Sustained Investigation, you will return to those questions again in an essay for the AP exam in which you also describe how your Sustained Investigation shows evidence of practice, experimentation, and revision guided by your inquiry or questions
Documenting Your Work; Available Technology
Documenting your work is an essential part of the AP Studio Art course, and for the AP exam.
To document your work, to prepare final work for sharing with others, and to create a digital portfolio, all AP Studio Art students have access to the classroom’s digital SLR camera, tripod, and black backdrop, as well as to the large-format scanner (capable of scanning images as large as 11 x 17”, including your sketchbook work). There are also computers available in the Art Department’s Mac lab next door.
All art students have a named-user license for Adobe Creative Cloud, which includes Photoshop, for photo-editing as well as for creating new digital graphics. You can install the programs on one home computer as well as long as you are enrolled in the class, and the license allows for Photoshop for iPad.
With these resources, you will learn to:
- create the best conditions for photographing your work
- manipulate the settings of the digital SLR camera for proper exposure
- crop, resize, and edit your photos to display accurately in digital “slide” format; and
- upload your work to portfolio platforms for college applications and the AP exam
On occasion, you will be assigned short, open-ended digital art and design challenges, and students in the 2-D Art & Design track may even create the majority of their artwork using the software.
You will organize your image files in Google Docs and share with the instructor and/or your peers using Google Docs or Google Classroom.
We will regularly use the Apple TV display in the Art Department office to share our work in its digital format, discussing your materials, processes and ideas and how the work relates to specific AP portfolio requirements.
You will be encouraged to share your best practices for using cell phone cameras and free editing apps to make quality images of works and document your process. Students participating remotely join in discussions through Google Meet.
References and Resources:
Students are encouraged to investigate a variety of creative art and design resources to enhance their aesthetic understanding and generate possibilities for investigation. You can do this by digging into the large collection of art reproductions in our classroom, through books and magazines, visits to museums, and online. Visiting the websites of particular artists and designers can provide an in-depth understanding of influences, inspiration, and process. We will often refer to, read from, and view and discuss artwork from Google Arts & Culture, where there is so much to see! Try the “Explore” button, where you can use the Art Camera to zoom into famous master paintings, experience culture in 360 degrees, and tour the world’s greatest museums and other landmarks using “Street View”. Or choose categories to discover the most well-known artists and masterworks in history.
In the art room, you can access an extensive collection of art magazines going back decades, as well as a small but rich library of books on art history, contemporary art, illustration and other applied arts. Students will engage with a wide variety of potential sources of inspiration for portfolio development, including print and digital art and design magazines such as:
- Art & Man
- Scholastic Arts
- Art in America
- Art Forum
- ARTnews
- Communication Arts
The course will also present regular in-class screenings of short videos on contemporary artists and designers from sources such as Art 21: Art in the 21st Century, TED.com: Visual Art, and PBS Learning Media: Visual Art, as well as the occasional longer documentary film.
ONLINE RESOURCES
We will dig into many of the resources below in class, but I encourage you to explore them on your own as well.
Visit the BPS Art Website Resources Page at https://bpsk12art.weebly.com/remote-learning--enrichment.html
AP College Board website:
AP Drawing (Homepage):
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-drawing?course=ap-drawing
AP 2D Design (Homepage):
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-2-d-art-and-design?course=ap-2-d-art-and-design
AP 3D Design (Homepage):
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-3-d-art-and-design?course=ap-3-d-art-and-design
Sample portfolios are at the BOTTOM of these pages:
Drawing
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-drawing/portfolio?course=ap-drawing
(Scroll down to sample portfolios and scoring rationales.)
2D Design
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-2-d-art-and-design/portfolio?course=ap-2-d-art-and-design
(Scroll down to sample portfolios and scoring rationales.)
3D Design
https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-3-d-art-and-design/portfolio?course=ap-3-d-art-and-design
(Scroll down to sample portfolios and scoring rationales.)
Arts Enrichment
- Google Arts & Culture - So much to see! Try the “Explore” button, where you can use the Art Camera to zoom into famous master paintings, experience culture in 360 degrees, and tour the world’s greatest museums and other landmarks using “Street View”. Or choose categories to discover the most well-known artists and masterworks in history.
- Google Art Project - Zoom into the finest details on the most famous artworks in the world.
- Arts & Culture Experiments - Try out experiments at the crossroads of art and technology, created by artists and creative coders with Google Arts & Culture (Some require VR headsets and Steam)
- Google Arts & Culture (Chrome Extension) - Make the site your homepage, and have a new masterwork fill your screen every day.
- Art Project - New Tab (Chrome Extension) - Display random masterpieces from Google Cultural Institute in your every new tab
- Artcyclopedia
- Art History Resources
- Art 21: Art in the 21st Century (PBS) - video series on working artists. Art21 is a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring a more creative world through the works and words of contemporary artists.
- Art School: PBS Learning Media - a web video series that introduces contemporary artists who discuss their careers and intentions, then demonstrate hands-on techniques or concepts. Art School provides resources for learning how to draw comic strips, create animations, and much more. Engage with contemporary art and discover new ideas for creativity from a variety of professional artists through this fun and engaging series.
- The Art Assignment (PBS) - A weekly PBS Digital Studios production that takes you around the U.S. to meet working artists and solicit assignments from them that we can all complete. For more, subscribe to The Art Assignment on YouTube: youtube.com/theartassignment.
- TED.com: Visual Art
- PBS Learning Media: Visual Art
- Art That Confronts and Challenges Racism: Start Here (New York Times)
- Art for This Moment: Harriet Powers’ Pictorial Quilt (MFA Boston)
- jonhenryphotography.com - Black mothers and sons recreating the Pieta by Michelangelo
- 6 Groundbreaking African American Artists (My Modern Met) - and these folks as well: Kehinde Wiley
- Google Arts and Culture Black Cultural Archives
- Google Arts and Culture Black History and Culture
- Google Arts and Culture How the History of Protest Can Be Seen in Black British Pop Culture Today
Art Museums
Visit in person or explore from home:
- Boston Sculptors Gallery
- DeCordova Art Museum and Sculpture Park
- Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
- Harvard Art Museums
- The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
- The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMOCA)
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Museum of Fine Arts Boston
- The Museum of Modern Art
- Peabody Essex Museum
- The Smithsonian Museum of American Art
Art Magazines
Arts Organizations
Planning for Your Future
Art Careers
Here's a partial list of art careers in which you might be interested.
College Search
Research post-secondary art programs:
- Boston Architectural College (BAC)
- Boston University College of Fine Arts
- Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA)
- The Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt)
- Montserrat College of Art
- Pratt Institute
- Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
- School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (SMFA)
- School of Visual Arts (SVA)
Here are the most recent rankings for the best art schools in the country, according to US News and World Report. These are a list of graduate schools; the non-graduate art schools themselves should be ranked similarly but are not exactly the same. If you click on the name of the school, that should bring you to that school's website. From there I would check their admissions pages and even call a counselor to ask about what they're looking for in a portfolio.
Weekend and Summer Programs for Young Artists
Investigate the opportunities
- Lesley University Pre-College Art Programs
- Boston Architectural College Summer Academy
- Boston University Visual Arts Summer Institute
- The Massachusetts College of Art and Design Youth Programs
- School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Tufts) Pre-College Studio Art Intensive
- Montserrat College of Art Summer Pre-College Programs
- Lexington Arts & Crafts Society (LexArt) Summer Class Catalog
Videos
On Netflix:
- Abstract: The Art of Design (2 seasons)
- Tales by Light (3 seasons) - Photographers and filmmakers travel the world capturing indelible images of people, places, and creatures from new, previously unseen angles.
- Miss Hokusai - An animated motion picture - Herself a talented artist, O-Ei works with her father, Tetsuo, later known as Hokusai, on the woodblock prints that would make Edo famous worldwide
On Amazon Prime Video
If your family already has a membership with Amazon Prime, there are so many movies and shows on art that are available that it’s impossible to list them all. Here are a few good starting points:
- Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace (A fantastic contemporary portrait artist and a great documentary)
- Masterworks
- Brushstrokes: Every Picture Tells a Story (a series of half-hour shows each focusing on a single famous painting)
- Great Artists with Tim Marlow (16+)
- Museum Access: Season 1: Episode 3: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Museum Access: Season 2: Episode 7: The Bruce Museum
- Museum Access: Season 2: Episode 10: The Phillips Collection
- Renaissance Unchained (16+)
- Art & Copy (a movie about graphic designers)
On Hoopla
Members of the Burlington Public Library have access to Hoopla, an ebook and streaming service.
- Loving Vincent is a wonderful animated movie comprised of thousands of actual paintings (hand-painted in the style of Van Gogh!). The life and controversial death of Vincent Van Gogh told by his paintings and by the characters that inhabit them. The intrigue unfolds through interviews with the characters closest to Vincent and through dramatic reconstructions of the events leading up to his death.
An artist's identity and experiences implicitly inform, and in some cases even drive, the work they create. Whether bringing attention to important issues that news headlines omit, or celebrating the history and heroes that brought us to our present moment, the artists in this playlist expand and illuminate the conversations we have around bias, race, and representation.
Skill Development Challenges
Virtual Instructor
A six-day set of lessons, including videos, on getting better at observational drawing
Art Dares
VI. Assessing Progress
Types of Assessment:
- Assigned exercises and projects
- Self-designed exercises and projects
- Homework assignments
- Written assignments (such as written self-evaluations, written peer evaluations, and reports)
- Sketchbook/journal
- Final portfolio of work
- Participation in oral critiques
- Presentations
- Participation in the year-end exhibition
- Final portfolio of work in the original and in slide form
- Midterm and Final Exams
Your grade will be based primarily on the portfolio of work for the quarter (approx. 80%) (depending on duration and level of difficulty, each project may weigh from 5% to 25% of the term grade), and homework (usually 3-5% for each assignment).
Grading Criteria:
May include:
- Research of ideas; concept development
- Strength and clarity of concept
- Strength of design
- Technical proficiency
- Presentation
- Understanding demonstrated in discussion and writing
- Class participation
- Specific criteria for each assignment
You generally will be graded on a combination of concept, design, technical quality, and personal investment/work habits. Although we reference the art department’s general grading rubric, you are at a level in your art education where the rubric will need to be modified for many projects based on the independent, individualized nature of your artistic investigations. In these cases, you will be graded on how well you met the objectives agreed upon by you and Mr. Ratkevich.
These are the tools we use to measure your success:
Bear in mind, you are in the equivalent of a first year college course. Your work will be assessed as such.
Self-Assessment: Critiques and Journals
Two important ways your work will be assessed is through self-assessment and peer-assessment. Critiques of in-class projects and homework are an important and regular part of the course. Usually weekly, mid-process on longer projects and certainly after every project, you will have the opportunity to analyze and discuss your own artwork and the work of your peers during oral group critiques. In these teacher-guided critiques, you will be challenged to explain how your work demonstrates your individual vision. You will also be asked to write about your work, and in both the critiques and in your writing, you will be challenged to explain your ideas and your processes (demonstrating your Inquiry and Investigation); to describe how you have Practiced, Experimented, and Revised as you worked, and to Reflect on the process, on the success of your visual communication, and on the quality of the final work. You will also critique the work of your peers, querying, commenting, and challenging each other to do stronger and stronger work. In addition to the critiques and your writing, the instructor will discuss your work with you and provide feedback at least every few days. Upon request, you may receive further individualized instruction and assessment during the instructor’s prep periods and after school.
VII. Classroom Expectations
- Be here -- Attendance is critical to success in this program. Studio time and group critique time cannot be replicated at home. Poor attendance will have a direct bearing on your grade.
- Get to class on time
- Use your time productively
- Take responsibility for the condition of your work area – clean up thoroughly at the end of each class
- ALWAYS get permission before leaving the classroom
- Hand in your work on time
- Use of cellphones is not allowed. Cell phones are to be turned OFF or turned IN when in class. The instructor will exercise his right to confiscate the cell phone if this rule isn’t respected.
- There is to be no texting, no facebook or other social media, and no video games.
- Clean up your work area at the end of each class.
- ** Art classes will use Google Classroom, Google Drive, and teacher websites that can be found on the BHS Art & Design homepage.
Artistic Integrity and Plagiarism
As in all other courses in our school, no form of cheating or plagiarism will be tolerated. For any infraction of cheating or plagiarism (including the first), the student will receive a zero on the assignment or assessment, and parents/guardians will be notified, as per the student handbook. The definition of plagiarism is “to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one's own.” Please note that plagiarism includes all forms of stealing words or ideas, including copying from books, web sites, or each other.
So what does this look like in the art room?
The benefits and desirability of working from direct observation and direct personal experience will be stressed throughout the course, and many of our class projects will be focused on working “from life” to help build your skills and understanding in this area. Artwork is to be unique and original. Images produced by others (drawings, paintings, even photographs) are the property of those artists and cannot be claimed as your own. There are however special circumstances that govern the use of “appropriated images”, and these we will discuss as issues present themselves, but before you turn in a project that includes them. According to the Ethics, Artistic Integrity, and Plagiarism statement from the AP Course and Exam Description: “Any work that makes use of (appropriates) photographs, published images, and/or the work of someone else must show substantial and significant development beyond duplication. This is demonstrated through manipulation of the materials, processes, and/or ideas of the source. The student’s individual vision should be clearly evident. It is unethical, constitutes plagiarism, and often violates copyright law simply to copy someone else’s work or imagery (even in another medium) and represent it as one’s own.”
Our rule of thumb is: ask or discuss before you turn in work that uses images not created by your own hand. In general, use of these “pre-existing images” (such as a drawn copy of a professional photograph) would not be acceptable.
Artistic integrity is something we will discuss throughout the course. You will be expected to explain how your work shows your individual vision in discussions with the instructor, with your peers, in regular critiques, and in writing. In these discussions, in your journal entries, and in other regular documentation of your creative processes, you will be challenged to identify and describe your sources of inspiration, your influences, and how you have used them to make something truly your own. We will look at a number of artists (such as Andy Warhol and Kehinde Wiley) who have appropriated the images or styles of others in a transformative way to convey personal and truly unique messages, or artists who have portrayed the same subject, or even worked side-by-side (such as Van Gogh and Gauguin) to paint the same subjects from observation with strikingly different results. We will look at works by artists who have clearly modelled their own work on the compositions of older masters, but with results that are distinctly their own. We will consider how appropriated images become transformed in the service of those artists’ personal visions. We will think about how these types of scenarios might play out in our own thinking and making, as with painting from the same model, painting from the same still life, or “modernizing”,personalizing, or otherwise transforming the composition of one of the Old Masters.
In critiques, in check-ins and informal discussions, in your sketchbook and journal, citing sources of inspiration will be an essential part of our dialogue as well as of your documentation of your processes. You are encouraged to keep a “scrapbook” section in your sketchbook, pasting in your influences and inspirations with notes.
VIII. Homework/Make-up Policy
Completing class projects by the due dates will likely require you to work on your projects outside of class. This is in addition to your regular homework assignments and your maintenance of a sketchbook/journal for independent drawing, brainstorming of ideas, and concept development.
The deadlines for your self-designed projects (such as for your Sustained Investigation) will be worked out between you and Mr. Ratkevich.
In the event of a long absence, you will be given time equivalent to the number of days absent to make up the work, unless you request an extension well before the due date, and it is approved by the instructor.
You will likely not be given extensions for work missed due to family vacations outside of the school calendar.
IX. Technology Policy
Students should refer to the acceptable use policy in the student handbook regarding technology. The iPad should only be used for taking notes during lectures, referencing images and resources for studio work, art-making, documentation, and tasks assigned by the teacher. Games and social networking apps are not permitted during class time. Cell phones are not permitted to be used in the classroom unless approved by the instructor.
X. Additional Information
I encourage students to seek extra help whenever they feel they are falling behind. I will always arrange a time to sit down with you if you ask.
Please feel free to contact me at school: 781.273.7024 (the art dept. office), or by e-mail at [email protected].
I almost always arrive at the school by 7 am. I can usually be found in Rooms 211, 213 (the art office), or 215.
What you will need:
- A sketchbook – 11” x 14”, at least “60 lb.” paper weight
- A set of drawing pencils and an eraser for homework and sketchbook drawings.
- A set of color drawing materials (color pencils, pastel, or markers) for homework.
- The Advanced Placement exam fee is approximately $85, and it will be due in February prior to the submission date for the portfolio, which is in late April/early May.
- A portfolio at least 23 x 31” in dimension.
Calendar
- In November, December and January, if you intend to go to art school following high school, you will prepare your portfolio for college applications.
- In December, you will prepare a limited (8-piece) portfolio for the annual Scholastic Art Awards competition.
- In late January or early February, you will set up access to the AP Web application (www.collegeboard.com/student/studioartdigital).
- Throughout the spring, you will upload images and work on your portfolio.
- By the end of April, you will forward your finalized portfolio to Mr. Ratkevich.
- In early May, you will play a role in the organization, set up, and hosting of our annual Portfolio Exhibition, in which you will have a significant amount of display space to exhibit your work from this course and your other art courses.
AP Website
For the latest information about AP Studio Art, visit AP Central (apcentral.collegeboard.com).
My Teaching Pages: burlingtonhighschoolart.weebly.com