0 A New Perspective

We're back at our Perspective Towers project in our Foundations Art class, and just for fun, I showed the class Dick Termes' great explanation of 1 though 6 point perspective.  Until now, I've taught 1-3, and for fun I showed them how to do 4 this year.  To be honest, I'd never given 5 or 6 point perspective much thought, but one of my ninth graders, Esther, got really into the idea of pushing this project further and figured out 5 point perspective on her own.  In order to demonstrate it to the class, she found this fantastic video -which we'll watch tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Esther's on to figuring out 6 point perspective (which apparently involves drawing on a sphere).  I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it, but she's determined...

Detail: A New Perspective

0 Comic Artists Do Perspective Better!

Tagging onto David's great perspective towers project... here is a great resource for teaching perspective. Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics From the Ground Up by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer breaks perspective principles down into clear, concise steps, walking through one-point, two-point, and three-point perspective techniques, including complex forms and figures in each. My absolute favorite - and the one that is sure to wow your students - is the four and five-point curvilinear perspective techniques, which create a wide angle view like the one on the book's cover.

Goodbye, old, boring perspective manual. ...Perspective drawing just got a lot funner!

Detail: Comic Artists Do Perspective Better!

0 Towers Part II: Podcasts

This year, as part of my professional development I'm looking into assessment in art education as a research project. I've been modifying various approaches to self assessment over the past year, but have been struggling to find a method that I'm truly happy with- one that recognizes the growth of the individual student by their own progress and clearly demonstrates their learning.

I've been having students turn in written reflections for a while, but Kate (see this post about the project) suggested that we have the students create podcasts about their towers. I was blown away by how much more thought and detail the students were willing to put in the podcast than they had done in the past on paper.

For their assessment, students explained their sources for inspiration for the project and how it their creations were representations and reflections of themselves. They also talked about their aesthetic an creative choices in creating their work. Here are just a few samples:

Detail: Towers Part II: Podcasts

0 Not an Ordinary Perspective Project

Just before the winter holidays, our Foundations Art students completed their (not ordinary, but extraordinary) two and three point perspective towers. My (not ordinary, but extraordinary) new colleague Kate Wentworth and I collaborated on developing this idea from Ken Veith's fantastic book... (wait for it) From Ordinary to Extraordinary. This book was given to me, by the way, by the (you get it- not ordinary, but extraordinary) Kendra Farrell at ISB Beijing.

Veith's lesson involves having students design 3 Pt. Perspective museums. Our elaboration of his idea focused on the students creating buildings that were secret puzzles about themselves. After designing their structures, the students had to incorporate something about themselves into the towers using three of the following elements:

• A Meaningful Object
• An Animal
• A Pattern
• Text
• An Image of Themselves
• An Architectural Style

Each one of those elements had to be 'above', 'below', 'on', or 'inside' the tower. Here are the results:

Detail: Not an Ordinary Perspective Project