Project 1 (Pre-Assessment): My Summer

Assignment:
Create a well-designed composition that tells us about your summer vacation. Include multiple events. Apply all your knowledge about good design to make the artwork as dynamic and visually interesting as possible. Do your best to make this a thoughtful and idea-filled artwork.

Suggestions: 
Brainstorm, write thoughtfully, come up with several events and ideas, and develop the composition by drawing a number of thumbnail sketches.

Project Length: 
One week (Due Friday, September 10)

Size: 
Any size between 12 x 18” and 18 x 24”

Media: 
Ink or color

Style: 
Any

Objectives:

• Represent multiple events in a single, strong composition
  
• Convey mood and meaning
  
• Show off your strongest skills
  

Step One:
In your classroom journal, write about your summer vacation. The more detailed content you develop, the better.

Some things to consider:

• What are your most vivid memories of the summer? Go into as much detail as you can remember.
• What physical/visual details do you remember?
• Describe an emotional or dramatic moment.
• What important things happened to you over the past two months?
• In what way(s) have you grown or changed?
• What have you learned over the summer? What have you discovered about yourself?
  

Grading Criteria

• Creativity
  
• Content (Development and communication of ideas)
  
• Design
  
• Technical Quality (“Finished”)
  
• Studio Work Habits
  
  

For this first project, I will not be giving you much advice; this is a pre-assessment to find out what you already know about design and what skills you already have. I will be taking notes on your work habits and your process, your final work, and your participation in the final critique of student work. By jotting down brief notes on how each of you approaches the project, I will gain a better sense of your strengths and of how you could grow throughout the year.

As the measuring tool, I will be developing a rubric that combines elements of these three rubrics and adds some additional elements based on my observations and notes from the pre-assessment:

• Creativity Rubric
• General Art Rubric
• Studio Habits of Mind Rubric
  

The post assessment for each class will be similarly broad and open-ended (For example, for the midterm exam, I might ask you to make a large drawing or painting on the trials and tribulations of being a high school junior), and it will allow me to assess your growth in idea-development, design, technical quality, and studio work habits in the same way as the pre-assessments did.

Self-Assessment:
Please answer these questions after you've completed your artwork:

1. One of the objectives was to illustrate multiple events. What multiple memorable events did you include and how did you arrange them into a single composition?
2. How detailed and thoughtful was your written journal entry? Did you use it as a method of informing and enriching your visual work?
3. In what ways did you convey feelings/mood in your work? How did you convey the drama of your personal events?
4. What are some of the deeper meanings you've tried to convey in your piece? How is this a thoughtful, idea-filled artwork?
5. One of the objectives of this project was to apply what you know about good composition. How is this a good composition? Which of the principles of design did you consider in developing the composition? How have you used contrast? Emphasis? Balance? Visual movement? Positive and negative space? Etc.
6. Did you draw thumbnail sketches to test out ideas and develop the composition before you began your larger image? Did you make a rough draft? If you used color, did you do color studies?
7. Which of your skills and strengths did you show off in this piece?
8. When did you know this was finished? How does this fit your idea of a high-quality, finished artwork? 
9. What do you like best about your final piece?
10. What do you think needs further work?