AP Studio Art Syllabus: 2-D Design

AP Studio Art Syllabus: 2-D Design

Course Description:

This course is designed for highly motivated art students who wish to pursue college level studies while still in high school. This syllabus provides direction for students to take the AP Studio Art 2-Design Exam and earn college credit. Students are expected to create a body of artwork that demonstrates the process of art making: which involves research in subject, technique, decision-making, and growth. The finished portfolio will be of professional quality that will show student confidence, growth and mastery of concept, as well as knowledge of the composition and execution.

The AP Studio Art Portfolio is a not a written exam, rather it is a performance based exam. Students will produce a professional quality portfolio that will be submitted at the beginning of May to the AP Exam Board. Students are required to investigate all three aspects of the portfolio, which include Quality, Concentration, and Breadth. Twenty-four works of art will be submitted that will address three major concerns; (1) a sense of quality in the student’s work; (2) the student’s concentration on a single visual concern or problem; (3) breadth of experience showing mastery of varied media, techniques, and subject matter.

2-D Portfolio

Through exploration of a variety of approached in technique, process, and product, students will show in their work how decisions on organizing the Elements of Art and Principles of Design address design problems.

Prerequisites:

Art I/II – and teacher recommendation

Learning Expectations:

Students will be producing pieces of portfolio quality artwork in two semesters; therefore a tight management of time and assignments is essential. The Breadth part of the portfolio will come from class assignments. These will cover a variety of techniques and mediums, demonstrating a vast array of problem solving skills. The Concentration part of the portfolio comes from an investigation into a particular theme or idea of interest of the student. The Quality section of the portfolio shows mastery or the student’s very best work. This wok can come from either or both the Breadth and Quality sections. All three sections must be completed on time. Due to the volume of work that needs to be completed, one third of the work will need to be completed at home. Be prepared to bring all work in on time to show progress, and to get input from the instructor and classmates.

Content of the Class:

There are three components of this course:

1. Study of various artists and possible art careers. Students will create works using different technology applications such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Macromedia Flash, and Adobe Illustrator so that they can experiment with different visual problems. Students will be expected to respond to art by blogging each week about the posted artwork.
2. Students will keep a sketchbook
3. Development of the student’s submitted portfolio or AP 2-D Design, which has three parts
4. Quality (Original Works) – 5 matted works that shows mastery or the very best work.
5. Concentration –12 slides exploring a single visual concern in depth
6. Breadth – a variety of techniques and mediums, demonstrating a vast array of problem solving skills

Exhibitions/ Competitions

• One piece of artwork is to be submitted in a contest during the year. There is a bulletin board in the classroom devoted to contests and “call for entries”
• Students are encouraged to participate in exhibitions during the year. Our school exhibition is at the end of the school year.

In addition:

• Students are expected to attend National Portfolio Day, which is in January
• Students are expected to submit their portfolio to the AP Board in early May. There is a fee to submit the portfolio.

Assessment:

Projects will have assigned end dates and students should make every effort to complete the work on time. However, there may be circumstances that can cause an assignment to be delayed. It is important that the student speaks to the instructor if the assignment will be turned in late. Projects will be graded individually with the focus on composition, originality, technique, growth and presentation. All artwork is expected to be of high quality, process, and product. Work will be graded using the actual AP Scoring Guidelines for Studio Art rubric. In this way students will be familiar with the rubric that will be used to assess their portfolios. There will be frequent, individual instructor/student conferences as well as an initial conference with all AP art instructors at the end of October.

Homework:

In college level art classes students are expected to use time outside of instructional time to complete portfolio assignments, research contemporary artists, work in their sketchbook, and visit museums and galleries.

Sketchbook:

Students will be responsible to maintain a sketchbook that will be discussed and critiqued weekly. Students should use a variety of media in their sketchbook such as drawing, painting, and collage.

Artistic Integrity/ Copyright Issues:

Students are expected to develop original works of art. The student should understand what constitutes plagiarism. The use of published (copyrighted or not) photographs in print or on the Internet may be used for reference, however students understand that they are not to duplicate images exactly.

The reference must be altered significantly in form and concentration. Two articles on Copyright Infringement are included in the summer packet. There will be a class discussion on copyright infringement after they have read the articles.

Critiques:

Students will participate in regular critiques during class. Students will be taught explicitly how to critique works of art using The 4 Steps of Critical Analysis process (Describe, Analyze, Interpret and Judge). Initially critiques focus on constructive criticism and later address the strengths and weaknesses in the artwork. Students will also meet with the instructor for one-on-one discussions regarding the progress of their portfolio and quality of their work. With the instructor’s guidance the student will review their work to be sure it is “portfolio quality.”

Videos:

Students will be shown vignettes of contemporary artist’s lives and their process of making art. This helps the students understand series of works and how to develop the concentration portion of their portfolio. The video segments are from the Art: 21 PBS series.

Artist Statement:

For the first semester final, students write their artist statement. The paper will be a one page, typed paper that will include an introduction, discussion of media, technique, style, vision and purpose.

Summer Packet:

Students who meet the requirements for AP Studio Art meet with the instructor in late May to review their portfolio. Work that is considered “portfolio quality” is saved since art can be submitted that was created before and/or outside of the AP Studio Art class. An overview of the course is discussed and the student is given a packet of information and assignments to complete over summer.

Summer Assignments for 2-D Portfolios:

1. Self-Portrait – realistic from observation showing emotion

2. Architectural – indoor or outdoors, one or two point perspective; pen and ink

3. Still Life or landscape using three different media

Materials Required:

The school will provide most supplies but the student should also purchase a flash drive to store their digital images and a 9” x 12” sketchbook.

Digital Submission:

The AP Portfolio has been submitted in slide form in the past. Now with the digital era, students may submit their portfolio in a digital format. Here are the following guidelines for digital images.

Requirements for Students’ Digital Images

File format: All images must be submitted in JPEG format (file name extension .jpg).

Image size:

Landscape orientation:

• Recommended maximum size: 780 × 530 pixels (10.83 × 7.36 inches)
• Recommended minimum size: 480 × 480 pixels (6.67 × 6.67 inches)

Portrait orientation:

• Recommended maximum size: 530 × 780 pixels (7.36 × 10.83 inches)
• Recommended minimum size: 480 × 480 pixels (6.67 × 6.67 inches)

Note: The image sizes above are recommendations. Your image sizes may be different.

Maximum file size: 3.0 MB per image

Free Disk Space

2-D Design portfolio: Based on the maximum file size of 3.0 MB and a total of 24 digital images, each student would need a maximum of 72 MB of free disk space.

Class Text:

Hobbs, J, Salome, R., & Vieth, K. The Visual Experience. Davis Pub., 2005, Third Edition

Technology Materials: computers, scanner, digital cameras, Internet, art and design software

Digital Software:

Adobe Photoshop CS2

Adobe Illustrator

Macromedia Dreamweaver

Course Overview – Fall Semester

The fall semester is focused on the Breadth part of the portfolio. This is a set of works showing mastery of varied media, techniques, and subject matter. This includes 12 slides of 12 different works. The Concentration portion of the portfolio will be started by the end of the semester so that students have an opportunity to work on it over Winter Break. Students will be expected to work on these assignments outside of class to make the portfolio deadline.

These are brief descriptions of the projects and are subject to change:

Spring semester is mainly devoted to Concentration with the last two Breadth assignments for 2-D.