Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Illustration Fridays : The Sketch Assignment that rocks!

Like many art teachers I give a sketchbook homework assignment.  Early on at my time at Apex High Ian Sands told me about an old homework assignment he used to do, Illustration Fridays.  He no longer did them but I was excited to hear about it.  IllustrationFriday.com is a site that every Friday there is a word posted.  Throughout the next week art work is submitted to fit within that theme.  If the students don't like the word it is out of my control, but often they have some rocking words.  I included a question on the exam about Illustration Fridays and here are what they kids had to say: (All are Art 1 students)


Illustration Fridays have been completed almost every week this semester, do you feel this assignment helped you brainstorm for main project or helped you skill levels in any way? Why, or why not?

Yes, I believe that Illustration Friday was a helpful assignment in terms of getting our imagination rolling. The idea of having a set topic and branching off from one word lets our creative side come to life. Also, the various mediums we could have chosen to use helped as well. The word for the illustration Friday below was "people".


illustration Friday's helped me in multiple ways. It made me spend more time on this class at home and it made it easier for me to come up with ideas for pieces with one word or phrase. Because of illustration Friday's I got to use mediums that I didn't use in class such as colored pencils, pens, markers, and crayons.


I do believe that illustration Fridays have helped me over the past semester. Although I don't believe they have really helped my skill as most of the time I didn't put a lot of thought into them, I do think they helped with my brainstorming. I think IF helped me brainstorm because they gave me more opportunities to have to draw and come up with an idea with just one word to help guide me. This came into play when I had the whole art of apex portal website to look at for an idea for an art project. I took one simple how to draw a face video and turned it into a piece with meaning to it.

9) Yes i do believe that illustration fridays have helped me brainstorm for main projects. Having one for each week helped me think about better ideas for each project. When i saw the word for each week i wouldn't just think of the first thing that came to my head i would think outside the box to be able to accomplish a better understanding of the word. Once i am assigned a project its easier for me to be able to decide on what to do. For example one weeks word was villain and i drew a villain from a movie instead of just doing a famous one that most people know about.