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AP Studio Art: Drawing |
Email: spiderdance@pa.net
Tech Needs: High Speed Internet needed for fast
transfer of large image files. Digital
camera (8+megapixels recommended) to photograph, format and send images online.
Textbooks: (buy used on Amazon.com) Required: An
Artist’s Notebook and the Art of Drawing by Bernard Chaet. Any comprehensive college level Art History textbook
for reference. Older editions will be the cheapest and that’s fine.
Class Tuition Fee: $575
Materials Kit Cost: approximately $150. to $200. Students use materials in different ways.
Estimated Weekly Time Commitment: Average
12 – 15 hours.
Our classes have
been composed of actors, dancers, musicians, photographers, athletes, swimmers,
and a few great fantasy writers. Each
one of these backgrounds has been crucial for informing and nurturing the great
art they have created. Bring your experience
and gifts; join us for 2011-20112!
Who Should Apply:
Mature homeschooled students who are entering grades 9-11
who enjoy the Arts, Art History and any type of creative work. Seniors will be
accepted only if their senior year is not overloaded with other high level
courses. I will talk individually with parents to determine if this course will
fit into your senior year.
New for this year - High school graduates taking a gap year can use this course to prepare
for college portfolio submissions. And, this course would be an excellent way
for a gap student to discern a career in the arts.
If you have NOT created a lot of visual art but you have
great verbal skills and understand the idea of composing your ideas into
a short story, poem or essay, you will be able to learn how to do the same with
drawn images.
Math-minded students will not be left out; mathematical
concepts of proportion, balance, geometry, volume, scale, etc. are things you
can enjoy and explore while you learn to compose and develop a drawing.
Students must be able to photograph their artwork, and use
camera software to format and upload their homework for weekly critiques. You
will learn how to critique your own work, construct your own rubrics and
analyze the work of your classmates. You will be reading and writing about
visual ideas as you communicate with your fellow classmates and us.
If you are a freshman, or if this is your first year taking
AP courses or college level work, you will not be able to take this course as
an addition to any other college or AP course. An absolute weekly minimum of 12
hours is needed to finish the required 24 drawings. Taking this and another AP course
in your first year of college-level academics would be overwhelming.
We cannot overstate how rigorous this course is for students.
The assignments are challenging; the standards are high. It must be given the same weight and
consideration as any academic course if students are to complete the amount of
work necessary, at the level of quality needed, to successfully score in the
College Board AP submission.
One issue of great concern to the College Board AP Readers,
who score the portfolio submissions, is the issue of plagiarism. In this course, we will be working from
direct observation. We will also guide
you in the possible consideration of your own photographs to use as secondary
reference in composition. The College Board will disqualify any artwork derived
from any source other than your own.
How to Apply:
We will treat your initial contact with us as similar to a
‘portfolio day’ at a high school. You
show us your artwork; we will make comments and suggestions. Send a group of digital images of any
drawings or paintings you have made.
Send 6 pieces (at least 3 must be drawings from life), no more than 12,
please. Original work done from direct observation is best. We will email back our comments and, if your
artwork shows the necessary basic skills to complete the course, we’ll include
an application.
Our application asks for your PSAT or
Course Description:
This course will cover what is taught in a basic
college-level freshman Drawing and Composition course. The first semester will begin with
monochromatic media, compressed charcoal, vine charcoal, conte
crayon and pen and ink. By semester’s end we will begin the use of blue and
brown inks, introducing the ideas of light temperature and working with warmth
and coolness, finishing up with black and white acrylic. There will not be any full-color
work in this course. This course provides a foundation for continued studies
in, but not limited to, AP 2-D Design, Fine Art, Commercial Art, Illustration,
and AP 3-D Design.
The first portfolio subject matter will include: Still-life
Drawing, Interior Spaces, Landscape Drawing, Self- Portraiture and more. The
emphasis of the AP Drawing portfolio is mark-making and the basic Elements of
Design. Some of these elements are Light and Space, Perspective, Line, Shape
and Form, and Composition.
Students will learn a weekly three-step process to art
composition as they complete the two portfolios for the digital application.
These steps are:
IDEATION : The creation of a
concept and plan of action to guide the artist’s thinking. At least one hour is
needed for this.
PREPARATORY
FINAL
Students will be required to photograph their artwork, format
it for viewing, and upload it to the AP Homeschoolers website.
THE PORTFOLIOS
The BREADTH PORTFOLIO: Consists of 12 pieces that
demonstrate the student’s ability to work successfully in different media using
assigned Ideations. These drawings should
show a competency in both technique and communicating subject matter. We assign
projects that will reinforce the understanding of the elements of art, design
and composition.
The CONCENTRATION PORTFOLIO:
The artists develop their own theme and ideation then explore it in
depth through 12 individual pieces. The
student must also create a written statement of intent and a description of
their Concentration portfolio pieces in their digital exam submission.
The Breadth and Concentration Portfolios are arranged in
digital format in April. The College Board provides an online template for you
to fill with your digital images. When
complete, you submit it to the College Board by the May deadline.
Additionally:
The QUALITY PORTFOLIO: Consists of 5 actual drawings, selected from the Breadth and Concentration
Portfolios. Your AP Coordinator, at the local school of choice that offers
AP courses, mails these directly to the College Board.
Basic Course Structure:
Beginning
Once the Portfolio drawings begin, students will have one
major drawing due each week. They will work in steps.
-First, they will spend about 4 hours in preparatory
thinking and sketching, concluding with uploading the Sketches
-We review the Sketches, post some or all of them, and offer
our written responses. Our comments and
suggestions help the student move forward to the Final
-The students complete an 8 hour Final drawing, then
photograph and upload their digital image.
-We review the student work, and post the artwork with our Final
critiques and a grade.
By following the web board posts, students will have a
chance to learn by viewing/commenting on each other’s work.
While we provide subject-specific assignments for the
Breadth Portfolio, in the second semester we will guide you in the process of
creating your own assignments for the Concentration portfolio. We will also be a bit like editors to help
students create the required writing component of the Final AP Portfolio; this
“working statement” will show Portfolio reviewers that the student can analyze
and understand drawings.
Research, idea-building and planning for the Concentration portfolio
will begin late in the fall semester. By the spring semester students will
begin the artwork for this second portfolio.
Some of the teacher-to-student and student-to-student
interaction will be individual; some will be forum-style on the AP
Homeschoolers WWWBoard. Critique interaction between
students is a necessary part of this course.
Instructor Qualifications:
We are a husband and
wife team. Our children have participated in many PA Homeschoolers AP courses.
Dianne Settino
1988 - Present, Homeschooling mom,
BFA 1981,
Fine Arts Technical Degree 1979,
I’ve taught drawing, color, painting, printmaking and many
types of crafts to children as young as 18 months in a Montessori school and
adults as old as 98 in Baltimore’s inner city Arts for the Aging program. I’ve
also taught in public schools, private colleges, state universities, art
associations, libraries and at our local homeschool co-op. My last child at home is helping me to expand
my art horizons into areas that didn’t even exist when I was teenager.
Linus Meldrum
1988 – Present, Homeschooling Dad,
BFA 1981,
I currently teach Painting, Drawing and Art History at
Franciscan University of Steubenville, OH.
Previously, I taught at The Yale School of Art,
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