Beyond Realism: Painting

I use Bootcamps in my teaching to support student choice. Basically, I spend a consolidated amount of time teaching skills, techniques and processes in order for my high school students to have the knowledge needed to make informed choices about media. Recently, however, I realized that my Bootcamps only explicitly taught realism and this was contributing to the value students' placed on art that was the most realistic. 

I want my kids to try on different modes of expression to find what works best for them, so I have to show them how. 

I've been re-tooling Bootcamps to reinforce a range of art-making styles as well as teaching the techniques and skills that will give my kids foundational knowledge. This week I taught a refreshed painting Bootcamp to my beginning students. I started the same way I always do - with a paint mixing  challenge, although I decided to focus on only acrylic paint. 

​The big difference was in the development stage. 

Experimenting with style as part of idea development.

I used This is Colossal to show students a range of artists' styles in acrylic painting, from photo realism to different degrees of abstraction. We talked about how the artists  "added more than the observable" by doing things like using arbitrary color, playing with space, adding patterning or inserting imagitave elements. 

When it came time for students to develop their ideas, I asked them to do two sketches in paint, each in a different style. Many resisted this - they felt like they knew what they wanted to do and didn't need to explore. However, almost everyone made discoveries in the second sketch, which ranged from finding a color that worked better to rethinking their whole plan. 

I noticed that the work produced was higher quality than in the past and much more expressive. The work was varied and felt original, which made the definition of success diverse and inclusive. 

Some students made art that was very representational, while others experimented with color and texture . 

Others explored symbolism. 

I'm so happy with how this Bootcamp turned out!!!!