Reviewing the basics with YouTube Tutorials

As the last moments of summer vacation tick away, I've been devoting more of my head space to redesigning my Intermediate and Advanced Art classes. The structure of my Beginning Art class is a strong foundation that I will continue to tweak and build on. If you use Canvas as your LMS, you can find that course in Canvas Commons. For more information, I wrote about it in this blog post.

Last year, I tried giving my upper level art students more autonomy while directing them individually and in small groups throughout their Sustained Investigation. A colleague suggested that I read "The Open Art Room" because it sounded like I was moving in that direction. After reading the book, I have LOTS of ideas! 

I plan to organize the semester into 4 main projects. Each project will use the format outlined in the book: Inspiration, Design/Development, Creation and Reflection. For their first project, Intermediate art students will use black and white media, and I've spent the last couple of days making tutorial videos for them. 

This first video (basics of graphite) will be a quick review of graphite; hopefully, they remember most of this from beginning art.

In this 2nd video, they'll review blind-contour and contour drawing. I'll have them create several drawings of cans, leaves and other materials.

Next, they'll make some observational sketches. Before they begin, I'll use this video to help explain what I'm thinking about when I draw, and how I make decisions.