Upper School Fine Arts Department shares their creative projects for the first semester of 2020
The Upper School Fine Arts Department including courses in Art, Photography, and Drama classes shared their work over the first semester of the 2020-2021 school year. Here is what they’ve been working on:
In Upper School Art
The new Upper School Art Room in DeSeta Hall is in full gear this year. With plenty of space for social distancing and plenty of windows for natural light, it is an ideal place for our creative students to create!
Four levels of Art courses are enjoying this new classroom. The classes are mixed with Art I, II, and III Honor all meeting simultaneously. The Art I class focuses on the basics of learning techniques and the fundamentals of art processes and vocabulary. Art II students enrich and further develop these abilities while working independently alongside the Art I students. The Art III Honor students work independently on assigned works which enhance and expand their range of ability in process and techniques.
This year with the new facility and the space available, Art III students have had the opportunity to add three-dimensional work to their list of processes. Working with a variety of materials, they have created several interesting 3D pieces.
There is also one section of the AP Art Portfolio. This is a college board class in which an advanced student works independently to create a portfolio for submission to the College Board for Advanced Placement credit. Last year was the first year for AP Art at Farragut, and three students submitted portfolios in the 2D category. All three received a passing score on their submissions. As we add 3D work to the art program we may have Art Portfolio submissions in the 3D category in the future.
As the Art room and the program continues to expand, and the Ceramics room becomes available, we hope to soon be able to offer students even more opportunities to explore other art practices.
In Upper School Photography
Students in the Upper School Photography class took pictures throughout the semester which culminated into a portfolio of the students’ 15 favorite pictures from their various projects. Their portfolio includes photography that focuses on patterns/repetition; landscapes; abstract concepts (images of an intangible idea); foreground and background contrast; light and dark contrast; the imitation of a master photographer; leading lines; and the rule of thirds. You can view our students’ work below.
In Upper School Drama
In Drama, students began the semester by learning about the different jobs in theatre. Students then learned the difference between acting on stage and acting on a movie set. This led into acting out “The Truman Show” script as a class. After acting out the script, students were then tasked with creating their own commercials to advertise products without making it obvious that they were an ad. This was seen throughout “The Truman Show.” The videos below are from seniors TaiJuan Lucas and Mariia Prodayevych.
TaiJuan Lucas
Mariia Prodayevych
Next, students learned what goes into creating a monologue and acted out monologues from movies in front of their classmates who rated their performances. Later on in the semester, students learned improvisation techniques and played various games to practice their improvisation skills. Finally, students learned about pantomime/mime and created their own silent film movies that required that they use pantomime/mime techniques.
