Today's Class- Today was our first exploration of color. We eased in with an exercise that dealt with color matching, along with continuing our experiences with shapes, and introducing the medium of collage, and exposure to the concept of mosaic.
How to make this up- Start with a color photograph of something that exists in 3 dimensions. (such as an object or a scene) The source can be anything you want, but if it is digital you will need to eventually print it out so it can be compared to your artwork. I provided cardboard templates of the minimum sizes- 6"x6" and 9"x4" (both 36 square inches), whichever shape makes more sense for your artwork. You may make something larger than either of those if you choose- it is your artwork in the end. You may crop your original photo and choose a portion of it to be in your new piece, but you must include everything in the portion you choose to depict. Do a line sketch of the object or scene, large enough to fill the chosen minimum box, drawn on a page in your 18"x24" pad. This piece will be more about color than anything else, but the more accurate the drawing, the easier it will be to match color shapes.
With the drawing completed, it's time to find the colors. Go through old magazines, matching the colors from the original photo as closely as possible, including value changes. Cut color pieces to a maximum of .5" square, though they can be any shape smaller than that. Arrange them to fill the equivalent spaces in your drawing that they do in the source photo, and glue them in place with the adhesive of your choice. There may be slight white space between them, or pieces may overlap. It may be easier to glue very small pieces on top of other pieces. Below are some student examples from previous semesters, showing the original photo and the new collage version:
Attach your original source photo to the page near your version, as in the above examples. This is a portfolio exercise and can be made up for full credit any time before the end of the semester, but I recommend not waiting too long. In my experience, this is the one exercise in the portfolio that students are least likely to eventually finish. It's not that difficult, but it is time consuming.
Homework- Nothing new yet, but keep in mind that the first draft of the museum assignment is due in late March.
For next class 3/1/19- Back to color, but something a little more involved this time. We will cover some basic color theory, and make use of the watercolors for the first time. Bring your 18"x24" pad, set of watercolor paints, watercolor brushes, some kind of water container (cup, can etc is fine), and a mixing palette (can be a fancy store bought kind with little wells to hold different colors, but anything relatively flat and waterproof, such as an aluminum pie plate, something plastic, will do the job).
