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The ALCS Visual Art Program Process

Sketchbook

Every visual art student receives a brand new sketchbook at the start of each semester. The first project usually involves creating art to place onto the front cover. Doing this adds unique personal ownership of the sketchbook.

This semester the middle school students created a design by dividing the paper with their name. The large letters create shapes, which the student then added designs too.

Here are some examples of the middle school sketchbook covers from this 2020 Fall semester below. (If you would like to see more middle school sketchbook covers head over to this slideshow: More Sketchbook Covers)


Jace Eagle

7th grade

Zev Rivers

8th grade

Violet Leadbetter

7th grade

Damien Montez

8th grade

Tolson Kempton

8th grade

Chloe Arnold

6th grade

Research Notes

Inside the sketchbooks the students develop their design for every assigned project through the following stages.

  1. Notes and thumbnails

  2. Draft/ Study

  3. Final (finished artwork)

Notes and Thumbnails

The student will take notes about the project details, possibly the featured artist, and the focused visual art vocabulary.

The thumbnails are small quick drawings of a variety of ideas that first come to the student's mind when hearing about the project. Most of these thumbnails will not be used for the final project, but help the student find what they want to focus on for the project.

Draft

The draft is created on the same scale as the final will be. The draft helps students master their design, and also gives them a place to test colors and other art mediums. Usually the draft looks like a giant creative mess! And that is a good thing!

Study

A study is created when trying to master a certain drawing or medium technique. For example, the middle school students selected a reference photo of their water animal, and then drew the animal three times. They did this prior to their draft and final to practice the shape and details of the animal.

We also created a study with watercolor to experiment with the variety of watercolor techniques to determine which would be best for the final paper.

Have more questions? Please feel free to email me at aphillips@aldocs.org

Thanks so much, enjoy the show! - Mz. Phillips