Expressionist Oil Pastel

Kapaa Middle School art students recently finished an oil pastel project after studying the artwork of famous Expressionist artists, including Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Franz Marc, and Wassily Kandinsky.

The main requirement for this assignment was to try to express an emotion using Expressionist techniques such as vibrant and intense color, simplified forms, and swirling directional lines.

Middle school years can be an extremely emotional time in one’s life, and our students really connected with the strong emotion and “drama” that is characteristic of the Expressionist style of art!

“We want more than a mere photograph of nature. We do not want to paint pretty pictures to be hung on drawing-room walls. We want to create, or at least lay the foundations of, an art that gives something to humanity. An art that arrests and engages. An art created of one’s innermost heart.” -Edvard Munch

Digital Portraits for Portfolio

Gifted and Talented students have been working hard on their digital portfolio cover assignment. They are starting with a digital self-portrait created in Adobe Photoshop (shown above) and will later add text to create a final magazine cover that is all about them!

1st year GT students are drawing digital contour portraits on the computer, that they will later fill in with color. Aukai’s drawing is a fantastic example of how students incorporated an element of technology (in this case the camera) in their portrait.

My 2nd-year students are creating their portraits using the influence of contemporary artists Chuck Close and Natalie Irish. Chuck Close creates large-scale portraits using a thumbprint as his paintbrush, while Natalie Irish renders life-like iconic portraits with her lipstick kisses. If you look closely at Kahiwa’s portrait, you will notice that it is created from kisses!