Coins

Our entire art class painted 18 life sized dimes from 1933.  They were going to be used as stage props for a dance production.  We could think of this as a service project, or we could think of it as an exercise in Pop Art. We will be reproducing an over-sized silver dime, an item of popular culture. The 3-D aspect of the stage prop will give the artwork a sculptural quality and recall the art work of the great 1950's to present, Pop Artist, Claus Oldenburg. He is famous for creating large scale sculptural reproductions of common everyday objects.  Painting all of these coins was pretty tedious and it took a really long time.

Salon Wall Painting

We were assigned to paint a gilded frame and inside we could paint whatever we wanted.  The reason why we painted gilded frames was to display the entire senior class' paintings on a salon style wall.  A salon wall is a wall with several gilded frames put in no particular order.  I painted a beach from the movie Moonrise Kingdom.

Derivative Art

We were assigned to take two images and put them together through Photoshop or make a collage of two things that would not normally go together to make a new original piece of art.  I decided to hand draw a picture of Darth Vader on a piece of newspaper.  I was going to trace it originally, but it was impossible to trace something on newspaper.  I replaced Darth Vader's red lightsaber with and painted a red spoon.  I made the background out of newspaper because I wanted Darth Vader to stand out but I didn't want a boring solid color background.

Floral Impressionism

We were assigned to paint whatever we wanted and then cover it with flower petals to give our paintings a French Impressionist style.  We used glue and flowers that have been drying in the art room for months.  With this art material we attempted to imitate the loose style and immediacy of the hugely famous art movement spanning from about 1860-1910.  Since this was a French Impressionist project I decided to paint a French Impressionist painting.  I painted Yellow Ballerina by Edgar Degas.  I only put flower petals on the background because I could not find the right color flower petals for the rest of it.  Also, I just liked the way it looked better without the flower petals on the ballerina.

Political Paintings

We were required to paint propositions and candidates that were on the ballot in the 2012 election in San Diego.  We researched these candidates in government class with a group.  I got George Plescia, who ran for California State Senate and lost.  My partner and I painted George Plescia, and then we added logos of the corporations that donated the most money to his campaign.  We also added the amount of money that each corporation donated.  We also were assigned and California proposition, I got prop 38, which was an education proposition.  The people riding the bus are the people who donated the most to the Yes on Prop 38 campaign.  Outside of the bus we added the logos of the biggest donors to the No on Prop 38 campaign.  Even though Yes on Prop 38 had a lot more money, No on Prop 38 ended up winning.

Sketchbook

Presidential Canidates

We were assigned to do free hand sketches of both of the 2012 presidential candidates as the 2012 election was approaching.  We were also told to write out quotes for the candidates.  We were also told to write out quotes that the candidates said.  We displayed all of the drawings somewhere in the school with Obama and blue stars on one side and Romney and red stars on the other side.