Eyeball Photographs

For the final painting in Art Fundamentals, my students wanted to paint their eyeballs.  Freshman Anna told us about macro lenses that can clip onto iPhones!  The kit actually comes with 3 lenses: macro, wide-angle, and fish-eye.  Anna has spearheaded this project.  She took everyone's eyeball photograph and organized the photo shoot.  

iPhone lens kit

Below are the photographs of the students' eyes using the iPhone macro lens.  

Dylan

Pat

RJ

Brett

Nat

Hannah

Erin

Mackie

Mariah

Conner

Alex

Nico

Anna

Vicky

Cole

Eamon

Ryan

Ms. DeWan

Student paintings in progress

Finished Apple Paintings

Students have finished their Apple Paintings!  Click on the link to learn more about this project.

Alex

Anna

Erin

Mackie

Nat

Pat

Ms. DeWan

Apple Drawing and Painting

We will draw the apple in front of you.  We want the apple to look 3D (like it has form) instead of 2D (a shape).  After drawing the apple, we will paint it.

Cross contour lines

1.  Bite into the apple.  Why?  Because drawing a perfectly round apple is boring!

2.  Draw the outline of the apple.

3.  Sketch the cross contour lines (vertical and horizontal).  

4.  Draw in the shadows.  Follow the direction of the cross contour lines - if your cross contour lines are curved, your shadow lines should be curved too.

Draw in the shadows

5.  Look carefully at where the light reflects off the table and apple.  It may surprise you!

6.  Don’t forget to draw the shadow!

7.  Take 3 pictures of the apple.  If you tap on the screen, the camera will focus on a different part of the frame: Shadow on the table, the darkest part on the apple, the lightest part on the apple.

Focused on the lightest part of the apple

Focused on the darkest part of the apple

Focused on the shadow

Under the Microscope Evaluation

Download your finished painting from below.

Grade yourself on a scale from 1-10:
     1. Technique | Is your composition carefully painted?  Are there crisp lines? Did you put forth effort?
     2. Evidence of form | Did you blend paint in a way to illustrate form?
     3. Contrast | Is there contrast between light and dark or texture?
     4. Balance | Is there balance between light and dark, and your chosen complementary colors?

iPhone ear buds

Engagement ring

Rainbow Skink Paw

Tomato Plant Leaf

Scorpion Sensory Comb

Snowflake

Flower Anther

Bike Chain

Scorpion Teeth Dorsals

Bee Salivary Lips

Scorpion Fulcrum

Butterfly Wing

Key

Art Fundies: Final Painting

Entire still-life display

1. Looking through a cardboard viewfinder, observe the entire still-life display.  Find a few compositions that you think work well.

2. Use my iPad Mini to take a picture of your favorite composition.

3. Adjust the colors and levels of the photograph on iPhoto on my computer.  Crop photograph.

4. Print.

5. Trim off white border.

6.  Measure and draw a 1-inch grid on your photograph:

7. Pick the size of your canvas.

8. Tape all 4 sides of your canvas, creating a 1" border.

9. Grid your canvas PROPORTIONATE to your printed photograph.  You will end up with the exact same number of squares in your grid, but they will be larger than 1".  Use fractional math to figure out how large to make your squares.

10. Draw the photograph onto your canvas.

Art Fundies: Betty White!

Students are learning about basic color theory and how to achieve the illusion of form with acrylic paints.

We worked on "test strips:" blending paints to make a seamless transition.  We painted a value (monochromatic) scale, a warm-to-cool scale, and a complementary scale.

We are using these test strips to "paint" a portrait of Betty White! I found an image of Betty White (wearing bunny ears, of course!) and projected it onto the wall and traced her outline onto a large piece of paper.

I color coded the shadows of her face so it would make applying the cut up test strips easier.  Stay tuned for updates!