Sunday, February 08, 2009

My classes- Part 2- IB Visual Arts (HL)

So in 9th grade, I took Painting for my elective class. I wasn't great, but I was pretty good. (Once, I painted an "orange" in various shades of purple; the teacher actually saved the painting to show to his classes the next year as an example of monochromatic painting. Sadly, someone started painting over it this year in orange.) I decided that I wanted to take a different type of art each year. Maybe I'd take Drawing in 10th grade, Ceramics in 11th, and then Photography in 12th. Then I decided that I wanted to stick with Painting- so I'd take Advanced Painting in 10th grade, and IB Painting in 11th and 12th grades (I wasn't, at the time, aware that there is no such class as "IB Painting"- just IB Visual Arts).

Towards the end of 9th grade- some time in March- I started drawing. I got inspired by the design of the back of Good Charlotte's album The Young and The Hopeless. I drew Benji and Joel (Madden) in regular #2 pencil and used colored pencils for the background. Then, I decided that because I was a real artist, I should go buy some actual drawing supplies, so I did. I bought a drawing "kit" that had a few regular drawing pencils (if I remember correctly- 2B, 4B, 6B), an ebony pencil, a regular pink eraser, a gray "kneaded" eraser (I love these things), a sharpener, and 2 charcoal pencils. I also bought some real drawing paper (which is heavier than computer printer paper). I drew Billy Martin with an ebony pencil, and Paul Thomas with the charcoal. Then, I started doing some other drawings- mostly pictures of band guys that I found in magazines or online. Here's one I did of Tyson Ritter (lead singer of The All-American Rejects):

So I decided that, since I liked drawing, and I was okay at it, I should take Drawing in 10th grade. Then, about a month later, I decided I liked dance more than drawing, so I switched my schedule so I could take Intermediate Dance. Then, over the summer, I hurt my knee (more on that later), so I switched back in to Drawing.

Drawing was awesome. I really liked it. I had the same teacher for Drawing that I'd had for Painting (he is also one of the teachers of IB Art), and he was totally awesome.

In February of 10th grade, I was in the teacher's office because I had to print something out on the Arts computer printer. The teacher asked if I had considered applying for IB Art. I said no, not really, but he said that he thought I should.

So I decided that I might as well go for it. I applied for IB Art- I had to submit a "portfolio" of my strongest pieces (I included two paintings and several drawings), a one page "statement" of why I wanted to do IB Art, and I had to have an interview with the two teachers of IB Art. The interview went well, and on the last day of winter term, I found out that I had gotten in to IB Art (which, for the HL- higher level- class is 2 years, 11th and 12th grades). So I was totally psyched.

Last year (11th grade), was a lot of exploration. I used so many different mediums: oil pastels, soft pastels, pencil, charcoal, sharpies, acrylic paint, watercolor paint, photography, ceramics. This year (12th grade) has been a lot more studio time and focused on building a portfolio. I love having time to work on my art almost every single day.

The exam will be in April, and there's a few parts. (1) Send in 20 (25? 35?) photocopied pages of my "Research Workbook", which is basically a "journal" of all my art stuff. It's kind of hard to explain. (2) Send in a portfolio of my 12 strongest pieces. (3) A one-on-one critique with the IBO examiner.

Currently, I'm working on a piece that is soft pastels. Most of my work centers around music- musicians, instruments, songs, music videos.

Just because I feel like showing off, here's a few of my pieces of art (some aren't specifically for IB Art):

1 comment:

Kathy said...

I'm taking IB art next year. How did the class turn out for you? I'm especially scared about external assessments!