Peer response

I left this comment on Dawn's Found Drawings, but I wanted to repost it under the "Peer Response" title too.

I think these are great! Not only did you transform a ridiculously bad situation, like your hotel catching on fire, into a refined, sleek image; but you’ve made me curious. From first glance I can’t quite figure out what the image is, I can’t tell the scale or even the material. I am attracted to the black and white composition and I love what you’ve done to the blue color. Repeating the form and cropping the shapes really alters my expectations. I think these are really strong works and I would like to see them very large. Nice Job!

Translation to Teaching

I have been thinking about how I can incorporate all that I have learned into teaching my high school students. In the past couple of years I have used a Visual Calendar as a warm up exercise. The students are supposed to draw something each day. They may choose whatever is on their mind to do a quick 3 minute sketch. I find that a lot of the kids do not know what to draw and end of scribbling something on the date just to do it. I have been thinking that it would be a little more interesting to make a calendar flag book that has at least twenty pages (4 weeks x 5 days). I would then give a prompt a day or maybe a prompt every other day. Maybe a prompt one day, a response to the previous days work, then a prompt again and keep alternating. Maybe the uniqueness of the book it self would keep them interested. The prompts are such a great jumping off point that I will definitely use some of the ones from this class with my students.

Project Book

I love the idea of a Project Book. I have never planned out a project in this way. My project book is based on my four dogs. Through research I actually learned a little more about the temperment of each of the different breeds of dogs that I have. I then started thinking about how truly unique each dog is which led me to their eyes. Dogs can say so much with just the eyes. They show happiness and sadness with just a change in the eyes. My thoughts led me to doing large scale paintings of dog eyes. Upon further travels in my brain, I got to thinking about the markings of the different breeds. Another large scale, close up of their abstraction of dog markings came to mind. The other idea I stumbled upon was doing large scale paintings of the different features. I really like the brown wash close up of my Lab's freckley nose.

I will continue my project book and further explore my Daschund's snout (a very prominent feature), my Beagle's mouth (they are known for their bark), and my Jack Russell's eyes (since she is the one that really has a lot going on in her mind). I would love to hang these in a grouping almost building a larger than life face of a dog.

Found Drawings

I had an idea immediately when I was walking to the bus stop. My idea was to take pics of the...what I named..."road nuggets." These are the little bumps that are placed in the center of the lanes on most roads. I thought that organic shape of the tar used to place the geometric shape of the "nugget" would be great for this project.

BUT...when I got back to my hotel, there was a truck that had all of the fans, blowers, and dehumidifiers that are used for fire/water damage clean up. They were stacked in the back of a box truck and the door was open. I thought...PERFECT! So, I took some pictures of the each of the different types. They were all this beautiful blueish green color. I made the color a little bit more intense but still kept the same basic blue green hue. I played and played with these in photoshop, turning, flipping, and cropping. I am quite the novice when it comes to photoshop but I think what I did turned out pretty good.

Image of Choice

This was the first assignment of the course. Sent home with only a roll of tape and two sheets of paper, we were to interpret the assignment however we saw fit. I started by covering the box of tape to use as the book "cover." I then cut and taped small pieces of paper together that were cut to the size of the box. The pages were then folded accordian style. I chose to go the more traditional route by illustrating the book using words and pictures. Of course I had to throw some humor into the mix since that is a big part of my personality. The story is about my travels to UF and all of the emotions, thoughts, and activities along the way.

Prompt List

My Prompts:

1- Opposites Attract

2- Water under the bridge

3- Racking my brain

4- Dumb as dirt

5- Walking on eggshells

Class Prompts:

6- The nose knows

7- Hit the Road

8- Smell the Roses

9- Just like riding a bike

10- Out of the blue

Peer Response

I really like Amelia's Project Book. I love the idea of the cross as the subject matter. Her renderings in pen and pencil were beautiful. The idea of a cross flat on the ceiling with big spherical glass beads of a rosery coming down to the floor was the image I saw as she described her project. The very last image of the circles and the cross is probably my favorite. I believe it was done with black pen. The cross and the circle as a symbol of eternity work well together. Nice job Amelia!

Everything Book

The donut on fire has to be my favorite. The "ordeal" at my hotel definitely inspired me and influenced my idea to draw the donut on fire. I definitely "went with it" and made the most of my situation. I like the texture of the fire and the water that the donut is sitting in.

The collages were also one of my favorite things. I like taking the traced shapes and simplifying them. I especially like the black and white version of this one.

Altered Book

The Altered Book Project was a project that really got me"out of my box". I have always enjoyed drawing from realism and like nice clean, neat work. This book is not at all like that. I plan to go back and refine a few of the pages and clean them up a little.

The name of the book,

"Good, Clean Violence: A History of College Football" really jump started my brain. Overall I am truly happy with my ideas and I think it was a creative response to the subject of the book, my love of football, and my reaction to being a UGA Alumni and coming to my rival college.

One of the first pages that I felt "worked" is the man with the alligator boots. The red backgroud makes the football player really pop. I thought the alligator boots was a nice comical touch . Further more the size relationship of the boots to the body add more humor and makes the tough football player look a bit goofy.

The cover of the book is a simple stencil of the Georgia G. I may want to add something else to this but I'm not sure yet.

The Florida page is another one I like. I found this really cool image of alligator skin that had a lot of texture in it. The reverse UF was a clever thought by Lauren and of course I had to use it as that is often my attitude when UF kicks UGA's butt's!