Black & White abstract painting

Post date: Oct 26, 2014 7:47:04 PM

Students had two choices for the final project in the black and white unit. The first choice was the abstract value mandala. The criteria are pretty simple, keep the whole design symmetrical, and each quadrant has to have ten steps of value. Craftsmanship for this assignment is key, edges have to be crisp and sharp. Students have some trouble with that part of it, their edges are either too sloppy or they fail to make enough steps of grey. Ten steps is hard but it is doable, I'm usually pretty forgiving with what I consider a step. The other choice was the abstract album design, students had to take a piece of music and make an abstract representation of it. So shapes would represent sounds, repeating shapes or patterns would be tempos or rhythms, and singular shapes or values would signify melodies or moods. This year most kids picked the value mandala which surprised me going into the project. I just figured kids would see the freedom offered with the music one and just take to it, but I guessed the idea that I wouldn't interpret their ideas correctly might have scared them away. That or they didn't think they could create an abstract representation of music, which it isn't really that hard it just takes some trial and error. Oh well, some examples are below.