THE END!

How did it happen so fast?!?! I feel like I am still on the bajillion hour bus ride that took us to the retreat in September not counting down the last 20 days til graduation.

Dear Future AP Art Student,

The most important thing about AP is to make what you love.  If you get suckered into a concentration that you have no interest in, you're gonna have a sucky year.  The next most important thing is to make it fun!  If you are like me, you will probably end up doing most of your stuff outside of the actual class period so make it fun while you're there.  Bring trailmix and dance to the funk music and steal dum dums from Mrs. McBride's desk.  I don't have one favorite memory from my last 2 years in AP, but all of the little moments balled up into one are what made it such a good experience.  When classmates win really impressive awards and their hard work/time is all justified or when people make really cool pieces that you can tell they are proud of are my favorites, and when everyone shows off their work to the outside world of non-artsits who are completely impressed by everything we make at the Showcase is fun too. Also the random stuff like taking a photo at the Christmas party with all of the blonde girls and Sawyer.  There's always the 2-3 awkward boys so it's funny to laugh at that.

Anyway, have fun next year and make cool stuff!!  Appreciate all of the little random things that happen and remember that Mrs. McBride's weirdness is what makes her one of the best teachers I've ever had. Congrats on being one of Lakeridge's newest artsy weird people. Go art!

Central idea of my concentration......?

What is the central idea of your concentration?
Wellllll I guess my concentration is centered around the idea that people choose to express what is occurring internally, mentally, etc., in different ways.  It is like a representation of what is occurring inside people's heads on the outside through their actions.  I need to figure out how to phrase this in a way that makes me look smart and arty

How does the work in your concentration demonstrate the exploration of your idea? You may refer to specific images as examples. When referencing specific images, please indicate the image numbers.
My idea of an inside-out way of thinking is explored most explicitly through one of my initial pieces.  The image of the ballerina dancing with a tutu of leaves demonstrates this idea because when dancers are experiencing stress within their own lives, they dance to seek a solution or an outlet.  Another clear example of this idea is represented in my piece depicting an artist beginning to paint.  She starts out clean and unsettled, but as the viewer's eye essentially reads the image from left to right and top to bottom, the artist begins to feel fulfilled again as she works her problems out in her painting.
The central idea of my concentration can also be seen in a more literal way in my piece of the bonfire in the library.  I decided to mix things up and do a more literal piece because I was reminded of the peace and warmth of a library when I photographed the beach bonfire.  Additionally, I believe my idea is portrayed in the piece showing ski racers gliding on top of the clouds because as a racer myself, I feel like I am flying when I ski and it is a very therapeutic experience.

Concentration so far....oops.

Right now I feel pretty successful with my concentration.  It has been fun for me to play around more this year with the pieces that I am producing, and it is nice for me personally to be able to feel fulfilled with my work and not have it be a huge source of stress (unlike last year).  This year I have been more thoughtful with my ideas and planning beforehand, and the media that I am working with this year lends itself perfectly to the exactness that I strived for last year but never could really achieve.  I feel like this concentration is much more 'me' and I like the work that I'm making except I think I might've forgotten how to paint and that makes me sad.

I still don't entirely know how to describe my concentration and I know it's not supposed to be media-based only, but I've sorta still been focused on the media rather than the concept behind it.  I feel that I have been working through and fleshing out two different styles of images.  The first is a more graphic and bold/black-and-white style, like the one of Isabelle dancing with the leaves and Sophie painting on herself.  The other style is more conceptual and as weird as a word this is, it seems more of a like 'gentle' way to combine the different photos I am using.  Ones in the second category that I am thinking of are ones like the bonfire in the library and Ally looking at herself in combination with the slide of an Alaskan sunrise.  When I look at them holistically, they still seem to flow well enough together.  The only problem is that I still have two more pieces left, it is already March 11, and I still have no idea which direction I want to end my concentration with.  And then I am also confused because the guy at OCAC selected the one I was least happy with, so now I really don't even know what to do with my remaining two....

These two are the ones I was talking about that are more graphic-y:

This one and the library one (I didn't have it on my computer) are more subtly mixed together:

This is the random one that Arthur DeBow picked...I don't know why..

WaHoOoOo

Hi. I made three pictures this month! My concentration is kinda like how people resolve internal conflicts in different ways.

My Concentration?

My concentration will eventually focus on double exposures/layering several images to create one cohesive image involving portraits and textures or landscapes.  I still haven't made much progress..0_o
The first row of images I plan to combine in some way..I like Ally's hands in it and the movement/colors in the other slides.  The middle two rows are images of slides that I found in the art room and definitely want to incorporate in my concentration, and the final photo is an images that I've started to play around with but isn't close to being done

 

What is a Concentration? (Tigran Tsitoghdzyan)

Tigran Tsitoghdzyan - http://www.tigran.ch/

This Armenian artist paints in oil (OIL!) even though his work looks like photographs.  He started painting with oil at age five and had his first show with 100 of his paintings when he was ten, which travelled all over the world.  He has lived, studied and worked all over the world and was considered a prodigy in his home country.

His work focuses mostly on people and his work reflects a photorealism to the tee.  In his more recent work, he has focused on younger women and their children.  

Tsitoghdzyan's work is visually coherent because all of the work has the same photorealistic, simple feel.  Especially in his latest body of work, each piece is large in scale and focuses on value.

Over and over, Tsitoghdzyan uses value to create deep shadows and contrast between the background and the foreground.  He also uses texture to enforce the realism of the subject's hair, etc. 

THESE ARE OIL PAINTINGS! 

What is a Concentration? (Arno Rafael Minkkinen)

Arno Rafael Minkkinen - http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/arno-rafael-minkkinen-photography 

This Finnish photographer uses his own body to create surrealist images with pure landscapes.  He poses his hands, legs, arms and feet in ways that go with the landscape in many cases to highlight it. 

The artist uses the common thread of his body in combination with landscapes to create visual coherence.

This artist uses a lot of space, texture, and line in his work as well as balance.  In many of his images he will place his hand at the top of the frame and a foot or another hand at the bottom [balance].