The great resource that is known as Art.sy has just been made open to the public. Art.sy states:

We provide one of the largest collections of contemporary art available online. Thousands of works from all cultures and time periods are accessible for study and enjoyment, and select works from our gallery partners are available to collectors. By making all the world’s art freely accessible, Art.sy hopes to foster new generations of art lovers, museum goers, collectors, and patrons.

What I like about Art.sy is that it allows you to search by various subjects, movements and more (as pictured below). It can also make recommendations for you too. Start browsing!

I’ll be revamping my life drawing/painting unit in grade 10 to perhaps focus more on the concept of beauty and how form, line, colour, medium & pose can evoke emotion and tell a story. In anticipation of this, I’ve collected several photos and compiled them into the slideshow below. Feel free to use/download it if it suits your needs.

Following on from my previous post, I’m still thinking about a “remix” unit for an art class. I’m leaning more towards a still image approach, but am keeping an open mind. The video work of Christian Marclay (“Clocks” info, Telephones video) would be great, but complicated. I’m thinking more about how the combinations of items/images can create new meanings. How do we perceive appropriation? What and how can we “sample?” What and how can we transfer?

We live in such an overcrowded visual culture with advertising, the internet, social media, TV and numerous other experiences. What would be an artist’s intention to sample work? How is it easier or difficult to appropriate work? What are the physical acts involved in creation versus the digital? How are they separate and how can they overlap?

It’s a lot to consider and raises more questions, which I like. So, similar to the tech unit planned, I am leaning towards “How can existing works (images/items) be used to create something original?” as a unit question. With the concept I am thinking of including how context and the manner of appropriation is used (i.e. juxtaposition). Naturally, I still need to refine these areas.

Some activities and artists I would include are:

• An introduction on how artists transformed everyday items into art (Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Jeff Koons)
• A comparison between Warhol’s “Birmingham Race Riot“ (1964) and Kelly Walker’s “Black Star Press” (2006) and then perhaps further investigation with some of the work by Banksy
• Collage (Richard Hamilton’s “Just What Is It that Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?“ and various collage activities involving images and text, including the work of Jacques de la Villeglé
• Image Transfer techniques
• The sculptural mashups of Brazilian artist Barrão
• JUNE 5 UPDATE: I forgot to mention Culture Jamming

So that’s where I’m at so far.  The title of the unit, “Image Transfer” or “Mashable”. Remember, everything is a remix and Steal Like An Artist.

If you have further ideas/resources for me, please do drop a comment below. I’d appreciate it.

As I continue to build my abstract art unit, I decided to make a crash course intro video for my students. It (hopefully) shows how abstract art evolved and how one can appreciate it more. Drawn elements of the video were done using Skitch. These JPG photos were then imported into iMovie, where they were repeated, stitched, sped up and then looped again to make it appear animated. Knowing my luck, I probably mispronounced names and added the wrong pictures. Feel free to constructively comment or feedback.
(Note: Expressionism has not been included in the video)

I am currently teaching painting with my grade 9 Art Foundation students. We’re doing landscapes. Some of them have never painted before so we are looking at colour and brushwork. For inspiration, I created this basic slideshare with various international examples and styles to hopefully, get their creative juices flowing. Feel free to use it if you wish or offer feedback etc. You can view the unit outline here.

I blogged before about Gauguin‘s involvement with Van Gogh‘s ear. Bloomberg recently reported that “…Theo’s happy news helped, at least, to push him over the edge.” Theo announced to Vincent that he was to marry. Read the full story here. The saga continues…

From The Art Institute of Chicago:

Learn tips and techniques that help young visitors make the most of their museum visit and enriches their encounters with art, both in the museum and at home!

(I’ve also placed this video under the “Arts, Learning & Talks” tab at the top of this site as well as on my Art wiki, that also has other museum links.)

I found out about Picturing America through a tweet from kenfar. Though I do not teach American History, I applaud the site for integrating Art into other subjects. What I like most is how the gallery is viewable through themes (leadership, freedom & equality, democracy, courage, landscapes, creativity & ingenuity). The galleries are not large, but it may give teachers ideas on how to present using visuals and art history.

HE WAS the ultimate Renaissance man – studying anatomy, designing a rudimentary helicopter and creating some of the most admired paintings of the age.

But could Leonardo Da Vinci also have perpetrated history’s greatest art forgery?

That’s the suggestion of one expert, who claims that Leonardo was responsible for faking the Turin Shroud.

The relic has inspired generations of pilgrims who have flocked to see what they believe is the face of the crucified Jesus. But it has also provoked bitter controversy after scientists carbon-dated it to the Middle Ages.

Now a US artist has entered the fray, putting forward her own theory about its origin. Lillian Schwartz, a graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York, claims that the image is a self-portrait of Leonardo, which was made using a crude photographic technique.

Read the full story here.

Thanks to Shane M.

The Guardian (UK) reported:

Vincent van Gogh’s fame may owe as much to a legendary act of self-harm, as it does to his self-portraits. But, 119 years after his death, the tortured post-Impressionist’s bloody ear is at the centre of a new controversy, after two historians suggested that the painter did not hack off his own lobe but was attacked by his friend, the French artist Paul Gauguin. FULL STORY HERE.

But Bloomberg says:

I don’t believe a word of it. This is not the first time it has been suggested that Gauguin might have been the aggressor in this odd art couple. The psychological motive for the suspicion is, I suspect, that many people don’t like Gauguin, and identify with the suffering Van Gogh. That’s the reverse of the effect the two men had in reality. Quite a few contemporaries liked and admired Gauguin; almost everybody, including his brother Theo when they lived together, found Van Gogh’s company unbearable. FULL STORY HERE.