Environment as Self

Project Title: Environment as Self

Artistic Noise Year: 2017

Description: This project provides a conceptual foundation and framework for youth artists to explore large scale drawing with dry media. Youth artists develop imagery by incorporating metaphor into their work; specifically, using an environment or setting to describe themselves. The rest of the picture is filled with loved ones and icons, spirit animals, and cherished objects. The result is a mixture of styles, compositions, and imagery that examine the individuality of each youth artist.

Objectives and Goals: This project allows participants to gain experience working from a grid system while providing a platform for self-expression and reflection.

Creative/Technical Skills: Youth artists learn how to grid out their source material and transfer it to a larger scale. They explore dry media; colored pencils, graphite, charcoal. Youth artists develop compositional skills and gain experience working on a large scale Critical/Conceptual Skills: Youth artists use metaphor to represent themselves while reflecting on important people in their lives. Analytical and critical thinking skills are gained through planning and discussion of work.

Materials: Large paper (48”x32”), pencils, erasers, colored pencils, charcoal, acrylic paint, spray paint, India ink, computer with Photoshop or similar software (for teacher), printer.

Process: Introduce the grid system to participants with examples of artwork from established artists. Explain how the grid is used, explaining its advantages and disadvantages. Pros: allows for high levels of accuracy through precise measurements, breaks up the images into smaller pieces for concentration, enables artists to enlarge an image to any scale, can be used with any media.

Cons: time consuming, grid boxes can get confusing if the artist is not focused, images may get skewed or warped if measurements are incorrect, materials can get messy. In this project, youth artists should use the grid as a guide system and not get too caught up in replicating the source material exactly.

1) Planning - Have the youth artists think about an environment that best represents them and write it down. This could be a real place that they are familiar with, or this could be somewhere that they’ve never been but always liked, or the environment - Now have them think about people that are important to or influential in their life and list them too. Family members, friends, celebrities, people that are alive or people that have passed away. They may also include fictional characters found in cartoons, movies, books, comics, etc.

- (Optional) favorite animals, spirit animals, inanimate objects like cars, accessories, etc 2) Mockup - The teacher and youth artists work together to create a digital mockup of everything in the planning section. The teacher can start with finding an image of the youth artist’s environment online and use Photoshop to create it as the background picture. Once the environment is set up, fill it with all of the people, animals, and objects that they wrote down. Print this out when done.

3) Artmaking - Youth artists should take their printed mockups and fold it in half horizontally. With it still folded, fold that in half again to create quarters.

Now unfold the paper and do the same thing vertically: fold in half and in half again. Draw over the creases on the image so that the grid is clear.

- With the large piece of paper, use a ruler and pencil to create a grid. Makee the same grid as the folded one on the mockup. Find the vertical halfway point on the large piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Now find the quarter lines on each side of the middle line and draw lines down.

Repeat this horizontally. When finished you should have a grid that looks the same as your printed mockup; 4 rows with 4 boxes in the row.

- You’re ready to start drawing! Begin with one box and work your way across the page. Transfer everything you see in the box on your mockup to the box on your large piece of paper. Create general shapes to describe the information and cover the entire surface before going into smaller detail work.

4) Wrap-Up - Youth artists should present their finished works to the group. Explain what decisions were made and why: - What environment did you choose and why does it represent you?

- Who are the figures/characters in the work and why are they important?

- What significance do the animals and/or objects have?

- Describe the composition and what it can tell us - Participants should generate a critique and discussion based around these questions, analyzing and thinking critically about each work.

Example:

Youth Artist: Bishop Title: Brooklyn’s Son