Exploring Art Media

If you haven't done much art instruction in the early years, it's not too late for your highschoolers to become familiar with a wide variety of art media and skills. This book offers high school students a complete one-year art course. It was written directly for students, so teacher involvement is generally nonexistent or limited - your students should be able to pick this one up and go. Nevertheless, the lessons are extremely well done, appropriate for students with little or much art experience who are self-motivated to explore different media. The lessons are grouped into chapters, each focusing on a different medium. These chapters cover color and design, drawing, commercial art, cartooning, painting, and three dimensional arts and crafts. Each chapter includes close to or over twenty lessons. The first five or six lessons in each chapter are essential, and the students should complete these before moving on. Then the student can choose the number and order of other lessons in the chapter they want to complete. Besides representing a wide range of media, the lessons also offer a nice variety of projects, concepts, and difficulty. For an example of the scope of each chapter, here is an outline of the drawing unit. The essential lessons cover value, basic shapes, texture, still life drawing, perspective drawing, and cylinders - perspective and foreshortening. After completing these, the student may choose to complete any number of the following lessons: one point perspective, toned paper drawing, two + point perspective, fill in drawing, combination photo and drawing, pen and ink, scratchboard, contour line drawing, figure drawing, portraiture, and more. Each lesson introduces the student to the concepts and skills being taught and then outlines a simple, attractive project for them to complete. Many of the lessons can last as long as students want them to - just enough time to complete, or several hours to perfect. I predict this course will be enjoyed by most students, and devoured by students who have any interest in art, as the lessons can be repeated and varied to help sharpen students' skills. If you have multiple high school students, it would further enrich the course if they used it together (constructively) to compare and critique each other's work. The pages are glossy and in full color, with plenty of helpful pictures. Spiral hc, 373 pgs. - Melissa