Who painted this??

[Richard Monro]

What a great teaching tool. You could spend weeks teaching about seeing, values, perspective, chroma and so much more just from this one project. Fabulous idea and results. You and your students justly deserve a rousing round of applause!

[Cynthia Daniel]

What a great art project. As a child, I loved to draw and I used to always get A's in art. In high school, I excitedly started my first art class. But, the teacher ruined me for good. After some basics of color wheel and mixing paints, we were told to spend the class session painting a landscape. Uhhhh - but there was none to view nor were we given any reference material. We had to just make it up from our head. I froze and spent the whole class session going deeper and deeper into withdrawal, fighting back tears and swore I'd never take another art class in my life. I didn't. I'm sure I would have done much better with you as a teacher.

[Terri Ficenec]

And it turned out so beautifully!

A couple of years ago, as an experiment, I taught my daughter and a couple of her friends a little art class. One of the projects they did was a little acrylic painting where the reference image had been cut up into (i think 12) numbered squares and they painted each square into that numbered square on a gridded piece of canvassette (in random order --except that the one piece that would identify the subject matter was reserved for last--so that they wouldn't know what the overall picture was). The resulting paintings were quite nice, and I think far better than they would have been had the girls known the subject matter. That lack of 'knowledge' forced a real examination of the reference and removed any preconceived notions or symbolic representation.

What a neat idea to break up the pieces and divvy them up among so many different students -- they've done an outstanding job! I've already called my daughter in to show her this collaborative piece... and will mention it to her friends as well.

It's just so impressive! Your students must be thrilled!

[David Draime]

Thank you all for your positive feedback. The students are justly proud of what they have accomplished - and I'm proud of them.

Originally Posted by Terri Ficenec

That lack of 'knowledge' forced a real examination of the reference and removed any preconceived notions or symbolic representation.

Exactly right Terri. This is such a great project for many reasons. As you indicated, most of the little pieces were very abstract - some, of course, had an idea of what they were working on - the plant pieces were pretty obvious...most students who got the "fur pieces" didn't know what they were drawing. So it forced them (and I forced them) to focus only on value (primarily), proportion (of course) as well as color - and edges. If I didn't push them, 99% of their pieces would have been WAY too light. That was their overall tendency.

I also hope that it drives home, to some of them at least, that in order to do a piece that is really grand, beautiful, lush....it requires a LOT of work, a lot of patience. Hopefully some of them will now be more willing to put in the extra time, extra hours on a foot or a face, a lotus blossom or a bit of fur to reach the goal, the big "payoff," - and thus enjoy the accolades.

This piece of course is extreme. 1800 student hours! I told them that if they wanted to be paid minimum wage for their efforts, we would have to charge more than $12,000 for this piece. So I told them that if I can sell it for that amount, I'll have the buyer make out the check to me.... and then we'll have a pizza party when they return from Spring Break!!

[Tom Edgerton]

David--

Good to hear from you.

This is a great, great, great, great, great project for art students! I echo the sentiments above--I wish you'd been my teacher.

Best--TE