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	The American Half Century of Art I was teaching second semester 11th grade humanities, the students studied American history till about 1939 the semester before. As a group we discussed what was different about America than the rest of the world during and after World War II. One of the areas was The Arts. There was no rebuilding of broken city’s here only a growth in American culture and economy a perfect storm, ideas and money to make new art. My students researched American artist that made interesting advance in artistic concepts, and they looked at the art that they liked too. They then choose an artist to emulate their style not so much their subjects. The results were fantastic; we got new Frakenthaler’s, Nevelson’s, Warhol’s and more. Along with each of their paintings they wrote a description of the artist’s work.

	History of Sculpture Flattened on the wall Each student researched and then choose two different sculptures to study. One must be out of the canon of western art, the second in the traditional scope of western art. They then wrote a page about the sculpture describing the Method, the Subject and the Reason that that sculpture was created. Then they: sketch, drew or digitally manipulate the 3D sculpture into 2D drawing. The student will then transfer the image onto a piece of plywood, cut out the image and then paint in the drawing. This will then be places on the wall of flattened sculptures.

	Who is yourMaster? Students choose an artist, craftsman, architect or designer and research their methods of creation, subject of their work and the reason for creation of their work (MSR). Then they studied their master’s body of work. Then they planned their work around MSR. In the case of Armond Radford; he painted in the style Basquiat but used acrylic on plywood. His reason for creation was similar to his art master in that they were two African American men that wanted to stick their finger in the eye of convention. Another student; Veronica Closson, wanted to painted in the style of Morris Louis, using paint and gravity to make the composition. I would have loved to see the mess in Louis’ studio because Miss Closson destroyed my space trying to make work like her master. In the end she had more success changing her method, digital output on paper rather than using paint.

	Senior Art Show High Tech High's Teen Spirit @ Cassius King Gallery, Gas Lamp District, San Diego March 12th, 2004. All of my seniors exhibited some or all of their Who is Your Master Project at this show. We also had student musicians and a student spinning. The gallery was perfect and we wish it was still around. We are taking donations to build our own gallery if you would like to contribute, please do.



	Frieda Journal Frieda Journal Project was inspired by Frieda Khalo‘s journal that she kept while she was sick in bed for three years. Each day she would complete a two paged spread. I had my students come to class with their journals that I supplied and work for an hour on a two paged spread. The results were fantastic, very detailed and personal small art. They used collage, markers, watercolor and what ever they could find. We listened to quiet music and drank tea. Every once in a while I would ask to look at a students book, then scan a good two pages, and blow it up and frame it. It changed the scale of the work but it really worked. The kids loved it.

	Eaton Project The Eaton family commissioned a painting 16 feet by 18 inches, and 50 students created and painted it for $1000.

	Black and White Hallway 125 students painted with black and then white, over and over to create a crazy hallway for a high school.

	Series of Four Students made a series of four paintings and related them to each other in one way or another.

	Value Studies Students found a landscape they liked and reconstructed lines, shapes, hue, and value. When I taught art in other place I had students do all kinds of art exercises, most of which they left in my classroom at the end of the year. My students needed to learn about value and relationship between different values. I would tell them, “You can make the sky any color you want” and the result was often negative because they would change the values along with hues. I came up with “A New Value” this had them find a landscape they liked and reconstruct, lines, shapes, hue and most importantly value. 1) Choose an image 2) Scan it 3) Print and trace 4) Scan the trace 5) Using the color picker in Photoshop color in the trace 6) Print the new Image 7) Try painting it, the paintings turned out great

	Altar Project The class researched cultural and religious altars and then made their own altars.

	Neo-Realism Like Manet, your painting will have a figure from the past and something from your vernacular.

	Digital Baroque Students chose a Baroque painting from the 1550-1650 period.

	How to Kill Allegory Spring 2006 We will respond to the elements of art: composition, line, shape, color and repetition.

	Whale Evolution We wanted to make a statement about the evolution of whales on a building in San Diego. We made the whales and then got shut down.

	Intersection Mural 2006 Mural Painting Intersession Designed and Painted By 25 students on 45 Canvases (2’x2’)

	Listening with Your Eyes

	Consultant Learning “Consultant Learning” was a concept that I learned about after I did this project. However since they have published their idea I’ll give them credit. Essentially I told the student to make a art for people and I would grade them by how much money they made. Some of the kids made paintings for teachers and offices around the school. I paid them with “Art Bucks”. Others really sold their work and I let them keep the money and most of them got an “A” in the class. I liked this method but found it a little too money oriented. The reward for doing a good painting should be a good painting.

	All the state standards in a week I wanted to get students working right away. I had each class paint yellow then red (on paper attached to the wall) and then the next class yellow and red, till the work was balanced and rhythmic. They were given instructions not to destroy images, rather embellish what was painted before them. Symbols were discouraged and balance (color, line, shape and texture) was enforced, by rotating each group of students every five minutes or so. Then when the work was balanced, we applied it to the wall, cutting shapes out of the paper to emphasize the positive and negative spaces. Then we realized that the work needed something else. That is when we made the blue and green paintings and cut it into shapes that went on the red and yellow. This illustrated contrast, form, shape, balance, and more. In a one week period, 120 students hit every California state standard in visual art. Then we started to really make art. The most important thing to come away from this is if you make anything it is still better than studying standards.

	The Shift The shift is when a culture changes its taste in fine arts, methods of creation, subjects and/or reason to create the art. These three terms Relationship – Influence – The Shift will be the buzz words of this class. All of the art and writing that we will be doing and studying will center on the themes of Relationship – Influence – Shift.

	art about Physics and Engineering OR using physics and engineering to make Art Senior Seminar Fall 2006

	Analog Flash for Windows Spring 2007 Each team of two seniors will create a mechanical interactive display that will fit in to the square window frames at HTH.

	A Bite out of the Norton Simon Fall 2007 Each student choose one work of art to replicate. A"bite" of this larger painting was created. Next, each student coupled the painting with a writing component. A postmodernist method was employed when writing and painting. The result is a series of rebellious, reactive and enlightening "original" pieces of art and writing.

	The Strain in Art Students will take their new knowledge of art history and create a work of art or some mechanism to describe the strains of influence in art.

	Geometric Cut-outs by Diane Rodrigas & Kiberly Barajas Inspiered by M.C.Escher

	Boy"s Bathroom @ HTH We really like bathroom art and thought it would be funny to dedicate urinals to staff, students and classes.

	India Wall If you can't make it to India you could at least walk down the hall at High Tech High

	Picasso's Influence on HTH Like the show that traveled the countries’ modern artmuseums, the students at High Tech High will make art that reference Picasso’s contributions.