A few wonderful artists to check out:

I find so many inspirational artists online- in this post I'll share a few of the ones I've found recently. In our daily online exploration, we are inundated with images and works from a seemingly endless stream of artists. It is important to slow down and appreciate them sometimes.

An idea for a class activity:

Have students research and explore art sites online and make a list of 10 artists that inspire them. Using curriculum/project-specific criteria, have them narrow down their list to the 3 most inspirational and course-relevant artists. Have them prepare a brief slide show presentation with examples of the artists' work, a bio and 1 example of the application of the critical analysis process to analyze 1 work from each of their chosen artists.

Here are 3 that I choose:

Dan McCarthy: http://www.danmccarthy.org

Beth Zaiken: http://www.bethzaiken.com/projects.html

Song Kang: http://www.song-kang.com


Enjoy!

- Patrick

A fun intro to photography project

A fun intro to photography project for a grade 10 arts class:

1. Introduce some tips for taking good photographs
This video worked well with my class.

2. As a group, try to identify each of the tips in the work of a few professional photographers.

3. Individually choose a theme or place to take 9 photographs- each one demonstrating the application of one of the tips.

4. Individually, each student saves their best 9 photographs to a folder for submission and evaluation.

5. Group critique (2 or 3 students examples per tip).

Here are some examples of Steve McCurry's wonderful work (as well as the one above):

- Patrick

Fibonacci Trees

The Fibonacci sequence is a fun way to show students how math and pattern can be found in art and nature. I've used this subject in the Grade 10-12 Visual Arts classes, in the aesthetics unit of the Grade 12 Philosophy course - and I've seen it used in Science, Math and Computer Science classes as well. This is a great example of a rich interdisciplinary topic for students to explore.

The basics about the Fibonacci numbers can be found here.

In the image above, I used the Fibonacci sequence to space the trees and the levels of the branches. This would be a good Visual Arts project, have students research the numbers, develop various templates and grids based on the sequence and use the spatial relationships to create an image.

- Patrick